QQ Bofors payoff flickers

by Nksagar | April 28, 2009 at 11:43 pm

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2009-04-29 06:13:38 - Ram Jhetmalalni said Congress wanted Italian Qttavio Quattrochi to be relieved from the Red corner in the last days of UPA as they have intution of not coming to power.Advani said, "this is a very serious issue. It is not a question of Quattrocchi alone but the entire role of the agency during the last five years which should be probed."Describing BJP's allegation as politically motivated, Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi said Bofors is a "dead horse" which the opposition party has been trying to flog for several elections.Amidst the opposition clamour, former CBI director Joginder Singh claimed that the agency had documents which showed that Quattrocchi had allegedly received 7.32 million USD as kickbacks in the Rs.64 crore Bofors scam.
Under fire, the CBI came out with a brief statement. Its spokesman Harsh Bahal said, "the case has been under trial in the courts since 1999".CBI has taken action on the basis of legal advice of the highest order.
The CBI had sent the case to Banerjee for seeking his legal opinion in the matter as the five-year validity of Red Corner Notice against 71-year-old Quattrocchi, issued at the behest of the agency, was ending in January this year.
The Attorney General cited CBI's inability to seek Quattrocchi's extradition on two occasions, first in Malaysia in 2003 and then in Argentina in 2007 and opined that the judgements in both the cases indicated that there were no good grounds for extradition hence the warrant cannot remain in force forever. Therefore, the warrant of February 1997 lost its validity, particularly in view of successive failed attempts of the CBI to get the accused extradited from Malaysia and recently from Argentina," Banerjee, the country's top law officer, said.The Attorney General also cited the May 2005 judgement of Delhi High Court of Justice R S Sodhi who quashed the charges against Hinduja brothers and Bofors Company.The High Court order came after Additional Solictor General B Dutta had conceded that the CBI could not get authenticated or original Swiss documents for proceeding with the case.

Advani said, "this is a very serious issue. It is not a question of Quattrocchi alone but the entire role of the agency during the last five years which should be probed."Describing BJP's allegation as politically motivated, Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi said Bofors is a "dead horse" which the opposition party has been trying to flog for several elections.Amidst the opposition clamour, former CBI director Joginder Singh claimed that the agency had documents which showed that Quattrocchi had allegedly received 7.32 million USD as kickbacks in the Rs.64 crore Bofors scam.

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