There is a fundamental difference between truth and falsehood. Truth holds together. Falsehood falls apart. Truth may be unpleasant for some. It also has an inconvenient habit of leaking itself out. It is this character of truth that has kept Indians informed periodically of the facts of the Bofors bribery case.

The involvement of Ottavio Quattrocchi as a middleman is no longer in doubt. The Swiss authorities have confirmed to the CBI that he was the beneficiary of an account in the name of AE Services where a large amount of commissions have been paid in the gun deal. It was AE Services which had swung the deal in favour of the Bofors guns. All earlier trials which had favoured the French gun SOFMA were reversed in the final trial after AE Services entered into a contract with the company that manufactured Bofors. The contract was a giveaway. It mentioned that AE Services would get its commissions only if Bofors got the deal before March 31, 1986. Conveniently the contract was awarded on March 24, 1986. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to realise that the close friend of the Gandhi family had assured Bofors that he would clinch the deal before March 31, 1986. He succeeded in doing that. He got the result of the earlier trials reversed. AE Services received the kickbacks. Quattrocchi was the beneficiary of the AE Services accounts.

The inculpatory circumstances do not end there. The very day that the CBI got a confirmation of Quattrocchi’s involvement, its officers asked the government of P.V. Narasimha Rao to impound his passport. This was not done and his escape from the country was enabled. Once out of the country, no effective steps were taken to extradite him from Malaysia. The CBI under successive Congress governments had a clear mandate — to lose the case.

... contd.