That the CBI is the government’s rubber-stamp has been reinforced at virtually each step in the two-decade-long Bofors investigation. So it wasn’t a surprise when in its application to a Delhi court today asking for withdrawal of the case against accused Ottavio Quattrocchi, the agency made a stunning U-turn and presented arguments it once had strongly contested.
Consider what the CBI said today — and what it didn’t:
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.
... contd.
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