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.
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.
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