Its Master’s Voice: To let Q walk,CBI eats its words again

The application states: “No appeals have been preferred by the CBI against two High Court judgments (that cleared the accused).”

• Facts say otherwise. Records with The Sunday Express clearly show that in both the HC verdicts — one delivered by Justice J D Kapoor and the other by Justice R S Sodhi — the CBI decided to file challenges in the Supreme Court but was not permitted to. CBI files show that before the UPA came to power,the agency had sought legal opinion for challenging the Kapoor judgment and even prepared a 28-page draft Special Leave Petition.

However,two months after the Manmohan Singh Government took over,both Law Secretary R L Meena and the Attorney General filed a convenient legal opinion that the verdict was not a “fit case” to challenge.

Records show that the agency’s entire team of investigators was in favour of appealing against the Sodhi judgment. In his final opinion (September 7,2005),then CBI Director U S Mishra recommended filing of an SLP. But it was the Law Ministry that sat on the case.

“There was no prohibition of employment of Indian or foreign agents,” said the CBI today.

•This is a dramatic reversal of stand. For,the assurance given by Bofors and the insistence of the Ministry of Defence that no agents be used for the deal is at the core of the corruption case.

On May 3,1983,the then Defence Secretary met all contenders of the Howitzer contract and informed them that “the present Government did not approve of the appointment of agents acting for foreign suppliers.” The Defence Secretary,according to CBI documents,“also told Martin Ardbo (President of Bofors) that the Government of India would disqualify a firm in case it came to light that an agent had been appointed by an Indian firm.”

On March 10,1986 (days before the contract was signed) Ardbo confirmed that Bofors did not “have any representative/ agent especially employed in India for this project.”

Later,when the scam broke and the Swedish National Audit Bureau (SNAB) confirmed that “winding-up costs” had indeed been paid,it was Minister of State for Defence Arun Singh who threatened to cancel the contract.

CBI documents state that the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi “intervened at this stage” and constituted a Joint Parliamentary Committee to inquire into the allegations. The CBI inquiry came in 1990.

“The attempt to secure the presence of Ottavio Quattrocchi in Argentina failed.”

• Just as in the case of the withdrawal of Rs 21 crore of suspected Bofors bribes — when Additional Solicitor General B Dutta traveled to London in 2007 to inform the Crown Prosecution Service that the CBI had no objection to Quattrocchi’s money being de-frozen — the agency was taken aback by the way its appeal in Argentina was withdrawn at the behest of the Government.

As reported by The Indian Express,Superintendent Keshav Mishra,the key Bofors investigator,visited Buenos Aires for the extradition proceedings and admitted that an appeal had been filed against the court’s order.

However,it was Quattrocchi’s lawyers — six months after India had pressed for his extradition — who subsequently admitted that a formal communication had been received by Argentina’s Foreign Office for the appeal to be withdrawn. Then CBI Director Vijay Shankar had said: “The CBI had said there were sufficient grounds for appeal. I do not know what happened after that.”

Sources had then admitted that it was the Law Ministry which issued instructions for the appeal to be withdrawn and that this advice was sent to Buenos Aires through diplomatic channels.

The CBI,of course,didn’t mention any of this today.