May 4, 1998

Where is the proof that Quattrocchi was a bosom buddy of Rajiv and Sonia?

Mani Shankar Aiyar

Soli Sorabjee, our new attorney-general, has a candidly high opinion of his moral self. It is an opinion readily shared by all. That he knows the law is beyond question; that he is bolt upright is beyond doubt. There are, as they say, no flies on our Soli. Which is why every non-Congress government likes to wrap itself in his moral aura. Morarji Desai did so. Now Atal Bihari Vajpayee has followed suit.

Sorabjee has announced that his highest priority is Bofors. The case has been dragging for a decade. Six governments have come and gone, some entirely on the strength of the pledge that the truth will be out before the swearing-in is over. But Win Chadha happily hangs out in Dubai. The usual suspect is still stalling matters in Switzerland. The identity of "N" of the Ardbo diaries, the key to unravelling the scam, remains a mystery. And one known recipient Ottavio Quattrocchi, ensconced in the safe haven of Malaysia, tucks into his pasta and pollo with nary a twinge to his conscience. It really is time we learnt who took the money and how and why.

Bofors, however, is also the highest political priority of the Government. So it takes no great moral courage for the attorney-general to sing the same tune as his master's voice. That is what all his predecessors did.

If Sorabjee wants to show he is different, should he not be targeting the three BJP ministers at the Centre and the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, against whom criminal cases have been pending in the courts for close on six years? Or does he subscribe to BJP President Kushabhau Thakre's jurisprudential illiteracy that swaying to the chant of "Ek dhakka aur do ..." is "political" not criminal?

Why, at the very least, does Sorabjee not set himself a time-target for bringing to an end the legal dispute over whom the Ayodhya property belongs to? For the past 10 years, that is being argued before the Lucknow-based special bench of the Allahabad High Court. Of course, that is not a priority for the Government. But should it not be for the highest officer of the law?

Possibly, Sorabjee shares Thakre's view that rolling out a minatory rath yatra is "political" even if it eventually results in setting the country on fire, alienating millions of fellow Indians and rioting and bombing that extinguishes lives, maims thousands and destroys families and homes. If, like the president of the BJP, Sorabjee believes all of this to be a minor distraction compared to defalcation, why not expedite the prosecution of Ramakrishna Hegde? Or file charges in the FERA case against Ram Jethmalani? Or assign some priority to a Himachal state minister whose alleged crimes relate to his tenure not as a BJP diva but as Union minister in a Congress government?

Getting after Buta Singh, now that he has put in his papers, would be par for the course for any attorney-general. Sorabjee will be able to translate his personal ethics into new standards for his high office only when he puts half of Vajpayee's ministers behind bars for sins with which they were charged even before they became ministers.

If Sorabjee's view is we should spare living politicians in the crusade against corruption the better to chase after the dead, would he like to give priority to two non-politicians who are begging to have the cases filed against them heard in a court of law? I refer to V. Krishnamurthy, who for years has been pleading for prosecution and getting only persecution; and sexagenarian capitalist Ashok Jain, who understandably prefers trial in the courts to torture by the Enforcement Directorate. Why no priority to these?

As for the Bofors business, I yield to none in seeking quick, full and early justice in that scandal. But I am not sure on what basis the CBI has claimed in its application to a Delhi court for a letter rogatory to grab Quattrocchi that Q was a bosom buddy of Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi. Sorabjee, as attorney-general, has only to send for SPG records to ascertain the exact number of times Q was received by the then prime minister at his offices in South Block, Parliament House or 7 Race Course Road. My information is: not once.

I would also urge the attorney-general to ascertain the precise number of times Q and his wife Maria were waved through by the SPG to the Gandhi residence at 5 Race Course Road or that any member of the Gandhi family visited the Quattrocchis. Ditto for telephone calls between the PMO and the Quattrocchis.

If these or any other corroborative evidence show that the Gandhis were indeed "close" to the Quattrocchis, as alleged in the CBI's application, we can take the story from there. If not, then the attorney-general should have the moral strength to say "Oops! Sorry" and tender his apologies to the family the CBI has defamed in a court of law.

At the same time, would Sorabjee care to explain why Quattrocchi's ae Services contract was cancelled in August 1986, when 80 per cent of the contracted amount (approximately $28 million) was still to be paid? And that too all of eight long months before Swedish Radio blew the whistle on the clandestine payments? If indeed Sorabjee is a legal wizard and not an unctuous humbug, then it is as much his duty in the Bofors case to tell the courts when and how the AE Services contract was concluded as the circumstances in which it was cancelled. Does "N" hold the clue to that?

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