QQ Bofors payoff in limelight
Buzz up! ShareThisApr 29 2009 | Views 49 | Comments (3)
Tags: Bofors Scam
Ottavio Quattrocchi, the surviving suspect in the Bofors payoff case has been dropped from the Interpol's wanted list at the behest of CBI, kicking a political storm with opposition parties accusing the govt of giving him a clean chit three weeks before it bows out of office.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.
As the Government tried to put up a brave front, BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate L K Advani held Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President "guilty" for the CBI decision and said the party will reopen all political cases if it comes to power.
Law Minister H R Bhardwaj said the Centre has no role in CBI asking Interpol to drop Quattrocchi's name from the wanted list.The agency took the decision on the basis of the opinion given by Attorney General Milon Banerjee given in October last year.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.
As per official media reports QQ after figuring in category of people wanted by Interpol for 12 years, the CBI has asked the international agency to take off Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi, an accused in the Rs 64 crore Bofors payoff scam, from the Red Corner notice list in which he had been put at India's behest.CBI also took Quattrocchi's off its website, a historical case which changed the destiny of Congress emerging from the major player to moderate national party in India.Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi friends and others were accused of receiving kickbacks from Bofors AB for winning a bid to supply India's 155 mm field howitzer. Quantum of its influence not only of the corruption which is rampant in India but standards that set nosedived and people who had unflinching support ot heir dear Rajiv reached low ebb and voters did not thereafter believed their leaders in such high spirit that of Rajiv and directly led to the defeat of Gandhi's ruling Indian National Congress party in the November 1989 general elections and since then it has not crossed its seats in parliament from more than 220.Bofors scandal was worth Rs 150 billion (Rs. 150 Arabs).The case came to light during Vishwanath Pratap Singh's tenure as defence minister, and was revealed through investigative journalism by Chitra Subramaniam and N. Ram of the newspapers the Indian Express and The Hindu.The name of the middleman associated with the scandal was Ottavio Quattrocchi, an Italian businessman who represented the petrochemicals firm Snamprogetti.
Quattrocchi was close to the family of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and emerged as a powerful broker in the '80s between big business and the Indian government.
QQ is given clean chit by CBI on Bofors scandal ,the CBI Director took the decision after meeting Union Law Ministeer Hansraj Bharadwaj. The decision was reportedly taken on the advice of the AG after getting
the legal opinion from Attorney General Milon Banerjee.
"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. We will inform the competent court on the next date of hearing (April 30, 2009)," CBI spokesman Harsh Bahal said here today. PTI
February 5,2004 the Delhi High Court quashed the charges of bribery against Rajiv Gandhi and others, but the case is still being tried on charges of cheating, causing wrongful loss to the Government, etc. Win Chadha also died.
On May 31, 2005, the High court of Delhi dismissed the Bofors case allegations against the British business brothers, Shrichand,Gopichand and Prakash Hinduja.In December 2005, the Mr B. Datta, the additional solicitor general of India, acting on behalf of the Indian Government and the CBI,requested the British Government that two British bank accounts of Ottavio Quattrocchi be de-frozen on the grounds of insufficient evidence to link these accounts to the Bofors payoff. The two accounts, containing € 3 million and $1 million, had been frozen in 2003 by a high court order by request of the Indian government (when the (now) opposition party BJP was in power). On January 16, the Indian Supreme Court directed the Indian government to ensure that Ottavio Quattrocchi did not withdraw money from the two bank accounts
in London.
Buzz up! ShareThisApr 29 2009 | Views 49 | Comments (3)
Tags: Bofors Scam
Ottavio Quattrocchi, the surviving suspect in the Bofors payoff case has been dropped from the Interpol's wanted list at the behest of CBI, kicking a political storm with opposition parties accusing the govt of giving him a clean chit three weeks before it bows out of office.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.
As the Government tried to put up a brave front, BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate L K Advani held Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President "guilty" for the CBI decision and said the party will reopen all political cases if it comes to power.
Law Minister H R Bhardwaj said the Centre has no role in CBI asking Interpol to drop Quattrocchi's name from the wanted list.The agency took the decision on the basis of the opinion given by Attorney General Milon Banerjee given in October last year.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.
As per official media reports QQ after figuring in category of people wanted by Interpol for 12 years, the CBI has asked the international agency to take off Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi, an accused in the Rs 64 crore Bofors payoff scam, from the Red Corner notice list in which he had been put at India's behest.CBI also took Quattrocchi's off its website, a historical case which changed the destiny of Congress emerging from the major player to moderate national party in India.Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi friends and others were accused of receiving kickbacks from Bofors AB for winning a bid to supply India's 155 mm field howitzer. Quantum of its influence not only of the corruption which is rampant in India but standards that set nosedived and people who had unflinching support ot heir dear Rajiv reached low ebb and voters did not thereafter believed their leaders in such high spirit that of Rajiv and directly led to the defeat of Gandhi's ruling Indian National Congress party in the November 1989 general elections and since then it has not crossed its seats in parliament from more than 220.Bofors scandal was worth Rs 150 billion (Rs. 150 Arabs).The case came to light during Vishwanath Pratap Singh's tenure as defence minister, and was revealed through investigative journalism by Chitra Subramaniam and N. Ram of the newspapers the Indian Express and The Hindu.The name of the middleman associated with the scandal was Ottavio Quattrocchi, an Italian businessman who represented the petrochemicals firm Snamprogetti.
Quattrocchi was close to the family of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and emerged as a powerful broker in the '80s between big business and the Indian government.
QQ is given clean chit by CBI on Bofors scandal ,the CBI Director took the decision after meeting Union Law Ministeer Hansraj Bharadwaj. The decision was reportedly taken on the advice of the AG after getting
the legal opinion from Attorney General Milon Banerjee.
"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. We will inform the competent court on the next date of hearing (April 30, 2009)," CBI spokesman Harsh Bahal said here today. PTI
February 5,2004 the Delhi High Court quashed the charges of bribery against Rajiv Gandhi and others, but the case is still being tried on charges of cheating, causing wrongful loss to the Government, etc. Win Chadha also died.
On May 31, 2005, the High court of Delhi dismissed the Bofors case allegations against the British business brothers, Shrichand,Gopichand and Prakash Hinduja.In December 2005, the Mr B. Datta, the additional solicitor general of India, acting on behalf of the Indian Government and the CBI,requested the British Government that two British bank accounts of Ottavio Quattrocchi be de-frozen on the grounds of insufficient evidence to link these accounts to the Bofors payoff. The two accounts, containing € 3 million and $1 million, had been frozen in 2003 by a high court order by request of the Indian government (when the (now) opposition party BJP was in power). On January 16, the Indian Supreme Court directed the Indian government to ensure that Ottavio Quattrocchi did not withdraw money from the two bank accounts
in London.
Comments
Post a Comment