An advocate,who opposed the CBI's move to withdraw the case against Bofors accused Ottavio Quattrocchi,raised a question of propriety before a Delhi court by alleging that senior government law officers,handling the case,had defended an accused in the payoff scam. Ajay Agarwal,the advocate who filed his written submissions in the court of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Kaveri Baweja,alleged that Solicitor General (SG) Gopal Subramanium and Additional Solicitor General (ASG) P P Malhotra,who are representing the CBI now,had appeared for Win Chaddha,one of the accused,before different Delhi courts. "The propriety and professional ethics demand that these counsel who are holding the high offices such as SG and ASG should have refused accepting the brief of Centre and the CBI in this Bofors gun deal scam case,once they had appeared for the accused persons," he submitted. ASG Malhotra and CBI counsel Naveen Kumar Matta had earlier on October 9,questioned locus standi of Agarwal in opposing CBI's application to close the case against 69-year-old Quattrocchi,by claiming that "publicity and politics" should have no role to play and the petitioner was stranger in the matter. In his reply,Agarwal countered their plea by saying that the Supreme Court had already accepted his locus in the Bofors case by accepting appeal filed by him against a Delhi High Court verdict.
