Even as Ottavio Quattrocchi got his reprieve in Argentina yesterday, fresh details have emerged on how the UPA Government’s law officers kept the CBI in the dark while they told Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) officials in the UK to allow the defreezing of his accounts.

This even as the CBI kept sending repeated reminders to the CPS that the accounts should remain frozen and was pushing diplomatic channels to uncover the money trail from Lugano, Switzerland, to London to connect the Rs 21 crores with the alleged Bofors kickbacks.

When the de-freezing appeared imminent, the Department of Personnel and Training (which has the administrative control of the CBI) sent Additional Solicitor General B Dutta alone to London, turning down the agency’s proposal of a senior sleuth accompanying him.

Just as in the Argentine extradition case, when the CBI delayed a public announcement on his detention for 17 days until he was granted bail, on the de-freezing issue, too, even the top bosses of the CBI were kept unaware of what transpired between Dutta and UK officials until the money was withdrawn.

The Indian Express has learnt that while Senior Crown Prosecutor Shane Nainappan e-mailed the CBI on December 26, 2005 informing the agency about Dutta’s opinion that “no useful purpose will be served by maintaining the Restraint order (on the accounts),” the e-mail, along with Dutta’s two-page report on the London meeting, percolated down to the CBI bosses only on January 12, a day after the order on de-freezing came. Coincidentally, after 17 days.

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