A ghost that refuses to go away

BRP Bhaskae
Gulf Todayhttp://gulftoday.ae/portal/838cf8e2-ab6a-40f0-bfbd-42b9fd087e6c.aspx

The Supreme Court last week rebuffed a belated attempt by the Central Bureau of Investigation to breathe new life into the three-decade-old Bofors scandal.

The scandal broke in 1987 when a Swedish radio reported that arms maker AB Bofors had bribed Indian politicians and officials to get the Rs 14.37 billion contract for the supply of 35 mm field guns the previous year. It had cast a shadow over Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s Mr Clean image.

The government conceded the Opposition’s demand for a parliamentary probe. The joint parliamentary committee in which the ruling Congress had a majority cleared the Prime Minister’s name but an Opposition member appended a strong dissenting report.

A sustained Opposition campaign built around the scandal did immense damage to Rajiv Gandhi and to his party. When a little boy, participating in a children’s programme broadcast live from an All India Radio station, was asked to sing a song he broke into a ditty in Hindi which ran like this: “In every lane, they are screaming Rajiv Gandhi is a thief!” 

The names of some friends of Rajiv Gandhi cropped up in media speculation on the middlemen who got the kickback but there was no material with which to pin anything on them.   

Later Indian mediapersons, following up the Swedish radio report, obtained documents which helped track the flow of funds from Bofors to suspected beneficiaries.  They won laurels for their labours but the material they unearthed was not sufficient to drag anyone to court.

The government had claimed that no Indian or foreign middlemen were involved in the deal. This turned out to be untrue.

Win Chadda, who had worked earlier for Bofors and some other arms manufacturers, was apparently involved in this deal too.

Bofors documents showed that in the closing stages of the negotiations, a London-based company AE Services Ltd suddenly entered the picture. It was not clear what role it played but Bofors rewarded it handsomely.

The money paid to AE Services travelled swiftly through several bank accounts before disappearing without leaving a trace.

The identities of those behind AE Services were never established but media reports linked it to Ottavio Quattrocchi, an Italian who came to India as a representative of Snam Pragotti, a fertiliser firm, and became a family friend of Rajiv Gandhi and his Italian-born wife Sonia.

Presuming that the kickback may have gone to Sonia Gandhi’s parents, a Delhi newspaper sent a reporter to Italy. Its hopes of finding signs of her parents living in opulence did not materialise. It found them living middle class lives.

The Bofors scandal played a part in the Congress party’s defeat in the Lok Sabha elections of 1989. A coalition government headed by VP Singh and supported from outside by the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) took office.

Singh, who was Defence Minister in Rajiv Gandhi’s government, had fallen out with him over a probe into kickbacks in the purchase of submarines from Germany. In his time, the CBI registered a complaint on the Bofors payoffs but the agency could make little headway in the investigation.

On a plea by one of the persons named in the complaint the Delhi High Court quashed it. However, the Supreme Court overruled the decision and restored the complaint.  

In 1997 after Swiss authorities furnished some secret documents relating to bank accounts of suspected Bofors payoff beneficiaries the CBI constituted a special investigative term for the probe.

While the investigations were on, Rajiv Gandhi was killed by a suicide bomber sent by the Sri Lankan outfit, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, and a few other accused died of natural causes.

The CBI’s sporadic efforts collapsed when the Delhi High Court quashed the charges against Rajiv Gandhi in 2004 and acquitted all the other accused the following year.

The agency’s readiness to act in the interests of the government of the day in politically sensitive matters is well-known. But, then, even during the six years under BJP Prime Minister AB Vajpayee it could not conduct a successful prosecution.

The High Court verdict came early in the first term of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. However, the CBI appealed to the Supreme Court only this year at the instance of the Modi government, against the advice of Attorney General KK Venugopal.

The Supreme Court’s rejection of the appeal does not mean the ghost of Bofors has been finally laid to rest. The apex court still has before it a partly-heard appeal filed by Anil Agarwal, a BJP leader. --Gulf Today, Sharjah, November 6, 2016.

Caught in another scam

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

The United Progressive Alliance government is in damage control mode following revelations in an Italian court that Indians were bribed to secure orders for helicopters. It has asked the Central Bureau of Investigation to probe the charge but there is little chance of the agency coming up with any concrete evidence.

Many military contracts have been mired in scandals but now, for the first time, the name of the chief of staff of a defence force has come up in a corruption case.

It was in 2010 that India placed orders with AgustaWestland, an Anglo-Italian company, for 12 helicopters for the VVIP squadron which flies the president, the prime minister and visiting dignitaries. Early last year Italian prosecutors began an inquiry into allegations that AW’s parent company, Finmeccanica, had paid kickbacks, part of which had reached Italian politicians. The Indian contract was mentioned in this connection.

Last week Finmeccanica’s chief executive, Giuseppe Orsi, was arrested for allegedly paying $670 million to secure the Indian order. According to the prosecution, Air Chief Marshal SP Tyagi, who was Chief of Air Staff from December 2004 to March 2007, was paid an amount, which has not been quantified yet, through his relatives “to perform and for having performed a deed against his official duties.”

Both Orsi and the company have denied the bribery charge. Tyagi has admitted that he met certain middlemen involved in the deal in the company of some relatives, but asserts he took no money.

The deed Tyagi allegedly performed was modification of the specifications of the helicopter to favour AgustaWestland. He points out that the modification was done in 2003, before he became air force chief, and the contract with the firm was signed three years after his retirement.

The deal with AgustaWestland was signed after a decade-long quest for a suitable helicopter, which began when the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance was in power. Taking into account the possibility of having to fly VVIPs to high-altitude areas like the Siachen Glacier, it was proposed that the helicopter must be capable of flying at a height of 18,000 feet.

Brajesh Mishra, then National Security Adviser, suggested modification of the specification. In a letter to the then air chief he said the height specified had created a single-window situation since Eurocopter, a Franco-German enterprise, was the only one with a helicopter that can fly at 18,000 feet. He asked that the specifications be revised in consultation with the Special Protection Group, which looks after VVIP security.

The SPG proposed that the operational height be lowered to 15,000 feet. This opened the way for AgustaWestland to participate in the tender. The SPG also wanted safety to be a prime consideration. This gave AW a distinct advantage as its helicopter had three engines, not just two.

Following the NDA’s defeat in the 2004 elections, the UPA came to power and in 2005 AK Antony was appointed defence minister. Reports at that time said Congress President and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi had picked him for the post in view of his clean reputation.

Congress and BJP spokespersons are working overtime to pin responsibility for the scam on each other. The former relies on the fact that the NDA government initiated the move to modify the specification. The latter points out that the modification was approved and the contract awarded by the UPA government.

When reports of the Italian investigation appeared in the Indian media a year ago Antony asked the defence ministry to look into the matter. The Indian embassy in Rome was not able to provide any information beyond what had been published. Parliament was told an inquiry could not be undertaken merely on the basis of media reports.

Unlike in the 2G and Commonwealth Games scandals, now before the courts, the name of no politician has come up in the AW deal so far. But the BJP sees in it an opportunity to embarrass the Italian-born Congress President Sonia Gandhi. It has also called for an inquiry into the role of an aide of her son and Congress Vice-President, Rahul Gandhi.

The new scam brings to mind memories of the Bofors scandal in which the names of prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and his friends had come up. The CBI investigated it for many years without any success.-- Gulf Today, Sharjah, February 19, 2013.

An eye to the 2014 poll

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

With the Congress party in deep trouble, foes are getting ready for the kill and friends are charting their own separate courses with an eye to the parliamentary elections, which is due in 2014 but can come sooner. The Samajwadi Party, which supports the government from outside, is exploring the possibility of reviving the third front.

The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance, now in the latter half of its second five-year term, has been assailed by one scandal after another in the last two years. Just as it was sighing with relief over the split in Anna Hazare’s team, which had brought corruption to the top of the nation’s agenda, a scandal relating to coal mining contracts made headlines.

The coal scam, like the scandal relating to allocation of second generation (2G) spectrum, was brought to light by the Comptroller and Auditor General, the constitutional authority mandated to scrutinise government accounts. The CAG estimated that allotment of mining licences without auction had resulted in a loss of Rs1,830 billion to the exchequer. That made ‘Coalgate’ bigger than the 2G scam in which the loss was put at Rs1,766 billion.

The Congress was able to shift the focus in the 2G scam to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam of Tamil Nadu, its second largest partner in the UPA, as its nominee, A Raja, was the Communications Minister during the relevant period. The opposition could only charge the Congress and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with failure to rein it in. Raja and Kanimozhi, MP and daughter of DMK chief M Karunanidhi, are now facing corruption charges in a court, along with some senior officials.

In the present scandal the spotlight is on the prime minister as the coal ministry was in the hands of the Congress party throughout and Manmohan Singh himself was in charge for some time. The Bharatiya Janata Party has stalled the proceedings of both houses of Parliament for more than a week demanding the prime minister’s resignation. It has turned down the government’s offer to discuss the CAG report in Parliament and vowed to carry the fight into the streets.

The procedure laid down in the Constitution provides for scrutiny of CAG reports by Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee. Any discussion in Parliament or action by the government on the report can only come after that. This procedure has been derailed on a few occasions since the CAG report on the corruption in the deal with the Swedish arms dealer Bofors for purchase of howitzers when Rajiv Gandhi was prime minister.

The combined opposition was able to force a probe by a joint parliamentary committee into the Bofors deal and the Central Bureau of Investigation conducted criminal investigation for years but no one could be brought to book. TN Chaturvedi, the CAG who produced the Bofors report, later became a BJP member of Parliament. Some observers believe Coalgate may go the Bofors way.

As in the case of the 2G scam, the Congress party’s first response to the CAG report was to deny there had been loss of revenue. Later a party spokesman accused the CAG, Vinod Rai, of harbouring political ambitions.

With opinion polls indicating that the Congress is going downhill and that its own fortunes are improving, the BJP is trying to force the government to quit and clear the way for early elections. With this end in view it is considering the possibility of mass resignation of opposition MPs. What is holding it back is the reluctance of some of its National Democratic Alliance partners to go the whole hog with it.

At one stage, the Congress itself was considering the possibility of early parliamentary elections as the drought spell in some parts of the country is likely to add to its difficulties later on. Its leadership, however, appears to be in a state of paralysis. It has not been able to take any meaningful steps to refurbish the image of the party and the government ahead of the elections.

The opinion polls show that as things now stand the BJP can hope to replace the Congress as the largest single party in the NDA as the largest single pre-poll alliance. But the indications are that they are getting only a part of the voters who are deserting the Congress. The bulk of them are moving towards the smaller national or regional parties. However, revival of the third front will not be easy. The Communist Party of India-Marxist, which played the midwife under similar circumstances in the past, is no longer in a position to do so. --Gulf Today, September 4, 2012.

Probes that get nowhere

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Just as the Congress party, which heads the ruling United Progressive Alliance, thought the Bofors scandal, which brought down the Rajiv Gandhi government more than two decades ago, had been finally laid to rest, it has come back to haunt it and its head.

The scandal relates to kickbacks paid by the Swedish arms maker Bofors to secure its biggest ever deal of $1.3 billion for the supply of 410 howitzers to India and a supply contract for almost twice that amount.

Led by the Bharatiya Janata Party, the opposition rushed in to make the most out of the Congress party’s discomfiture. But a worse embarrassment was in store for the BJP. A court slapped a four-year jail term on its former president, Bangaru Laxman, in another corruption case.

The Bofors scandal was broken by the Swedish radio which said the company had bribed Indian politicians. The names of Rajiv Gandhi and Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi, a friend of the Gandhi family, came up in later media reports. VP Singh, who became prime minister following the Congress party’s defeat, referred the matter to the Central Bureau of Investigation, which registered a corruption case.

In 2004, long after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, the courts exonerated him but the continuing proceedings against Quattrocchi remained a source of worry for the party, now headed by his Italian-born wife, Sonia Gandhi. Last year the courts granted the CBI’s request to drop the proceedings against Quattrocchi as he could not be brought to India.

Former Swedish police chief Sten Lindstrom, who had leaked a large number of documents relating to the kickback payments to Geneva-based Indian journalist Chitra Subramaniam-Duella, leading to a series of investigative stories in The Hindu, rekindled memories of the scandal last week with an interview to her to mark its silver jubilee. 

Lindstrom said he had turned whistleblower as he could not count on Bofors or the Swedish and Indian governments to get to the bottom of the deal in which rules were flouted, institutions bypassed and honest Swedish officials and politicians kept in the dark.

Lindstrom’s leaks did not yield expected results as there was no one in the Indian government or investigating team who shared his passionate desire to get to the bottom of the matter.

The CBI, which is directly under the Prime Minister, has a fair record of successful prosecution of offenders in ordinary crimes. However, its performance in cases involving top politicians, senior bureaucrats and high police officials is generally poor.

Recognising that the agency is susceptible to political influence, the higher courts have taken upon themselves the task of overseeing investigation of some sensational cases and asked it to report directly to them. The 2G spectrum cases in which two former ministers, a member of parliament and several high officials figure among the accused are among them.

The CBI’s failure to pursue the Bofors investigation vigorously even under non-Congress governments shows the issue of political control is not a simple one. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government, which served a full five-year term, too could not get to the bottom of the matter.

Lindstrom, in his interview, made two significant revelations. Fearing the media campaign might force India to cancel the contract, Bofors had sent its top executives to disclose the names of beneficiaries of kickbacks but no one of consequence received them. Politicians who met him and vowed to unravel the truth if they came to power did nothing when they had the opportunity.

Lindstrom has raised the Bofors issue again without high expectation. “Maybe we will get nowhere,” he said, “but silence cannot be the answer.”

The moral of the Bofors story is that politicians tend to view cases of corruption as grist to the mill of election propaganda rather than as acts of misdemeanour that call for punishment.

Ironically, while those involved in the Bofors affair, a real scandal, have got away, Bangaru Laxman has been convicted in a spurious arms deal. He took bribe not from an arms dealer but from a journalist posing as one in a sting operation conducted while the NDA was in power. Since there are two higher courts to which he can appeal, the present verdict cannot be taken as the last word. Eleven other cases filed on the basis of the same sting operation are still before the trial court. --Gulf Today, Sharjah, April 30, 2012.