A person who could swing decisions in India obviously controlled A.E. Services. Investigations establish that the face behind the company was that of Ottavio Quattrochhi, whose proximity to the powers that be was evident.

What happened thereafter is a textbook example of how every institution in India was subverted.  Why then does Arun Singh blame only Rajiv Gandhi? Let us analyse the conduct of each institution.

The political government: Even though the truth was discovered in April 1987, the Congress government decided not to register a criminal case.  So investigations could not start and cooperation of the Swiss and Swedish authorities could not be obtained. Till November 1989 no case of corruption was registered. V.P. Singh’s government was in power for 11 months. It registered an FIR, it sought international cooperation and it took all effective measures to procure evidence to establish the truth. This government collapsed in November 1990. From then onwards it was the Chandrashekhar government, supported by the Congress, the Congress government led by P.V. Narsimha Rao and the United Front government again supported by the Congress. The case was not effectively pursued. Madhav Singh Solanki, the external affairs minister in the Narasimha Rao government requested the Swiss authorities to issue an aide-memoir to refuse cooperation in the case.  It was only between 1998 and 2004 that the CBI was again given a free hand to procure all documents and file a charge sheet.  Two erroneous judgments of the Delhi High Court in 2004 and 2005 have been allowed to stand under the current government and not been appealed by the CBI. Barring the two non-Congress governments headed by V.P. Singh and Atal Behari Vajpayee, the role of the political executive continuously was to prevent the truth from coming out.

... contd.