The Nation: Howitzer Scandal; All Quiet on the Bofors Front

India Today
October 12,1998

HOWITZER SCANDAL
All Quiet on the Bofors Front

The 12-year-old defence scam seems headed for a quiet burial under an anti-Congress government.

By Harish Gupta

All Quiet on the Bofors Front Since 1989 every non-Congress government has promised to bring to book the beneficiaries of the Bofors payoff, only to close its innings in power with a few stray hits. The BJP Government is no exception. That makes the matter curiouser because, unlike the previous United Front government, it is not sustained by the support of the Congress under whose rule the sweetheart deal with the Swedish gunmaker was struck. The probe remains elusive even under the second anti-Congress government after V.P. Singh's.

It was on March 19, the day Atal Bihari Vajpayee took his oath of office as prime minister, that two CBI officers returned from abroad with documents to prove that Ottavio Quattrocchi and Win Chadha had diverted the Bofors payoff to Austria and Switzerland from Guernsey (Channel Island) in the UK on May 31, 1990. The documents showed that while the Quattrocchis received $7.3 million, Chadha and his family members' share was $26.7 million. Bofors AB had allegedly bribed them to swing the Rs 1,437-crore deal in its favour in March 1986.

The proof of receipt of the funds by the Quattrocchi-Chadha duo filled an important link in the chain and the CBI promptly put it in its progress report to the Department of Personnel, directly under Vajpayee in his maiden fortnight in office. It was expected to trigger swift action, considering Vajpayee's declaration during the poll campaign in January: "We want the Bofors papers to be released now and the truth out at the earliest."

It is over six months now, and the Vajpayee Cabinet has not cleared the Letter Rogatory (LR) to Austria. It is a Viennese bank where the lion's share of the howitzer payoff was transferred. Though the LR to Switzerland was put together and personally carried to Geneva by dig N.R. Wasan, it contained drafting flaws. Unless the LRs are in order, no court abroad will oblige the Indian agency with the names of "unknown politicians, bureaucrats, army personnel, Bofors executives and Swedish politicians who benefited in the multi-crore deal".

Quattrocchi and Chadha are now residents of Malaysia and the UAE respectively. Strangely, the BJP Government did not use diplomatic channels to persuade the two governments to cooperate with the investigation. While the Malaysians did not permit the visiting CBI team to question Quattrocchi, the UAE government refused to honour the non-bailable warrants served on Chadha. Sources in the External Affairs Ministry say that in the absence of extradition treaties with Kuala Lumpur and Dubai, the fugitives can be reached only by playing the diplomatic card.

Also uncertain is the fate of the CBI charge-sheet against Madhavsinh Solanki, Gopi Arora, S.K. Bhatnagar and others. The file relating to their cases is doing purposeless rounds in the Law Ministry, the CBI and the Personnel Department. To make matters worse, the CBI has been unable to make any breakthrough in the mysterious theft of a computer from Wasan's office last year. The agency maintains that the computer's hard disk did not contain any vital Bofors document. But nobody has shed light on selective burglary in a high-security office.

It must be said to Vajpayee's credit that among all prime ministers since Indira Gandhi, he has interfered the least with the investigative agencies. CBI Director Trinath Mishra has met Vajpayee only once and that too when he took over as the prime minister. Still, the agency has been careful not to be in a hurry to obtain documents from the Swiss on a Bofors account in which the Hindujas -- old friends of Vajpayee -- are appellants. On the contrary, the CBI abruptly terminated its contract with the Swiss lawyer hired to assist it in getting these documents. Of course Vajpayee is lately distancing himself from the Hindujas, having recently prevented them from sharing a platform with him at the inauguration of the Hare Krishna Temple in Delhi. But the Swiss, famed for their expertise in judging relations, are dragging their feet on the particular account in which the Hindujas are interested.

Meanwhile, many prime Bofors accused are coming up with the plea to tell their stories voluntarily. The Hindujas were the first when they offered to squeal in 1995. Vajpayee, then in the Opposition, said the offer should be accepted by the government. Quattrocchi and Chadha have lately followed the same tactic. After the Delhi High Court dismissed Quattrocchi's plea to quash the non-bailable warrants against him, a public-relations agency hired by the Italian businessman stated that he was ready to be interviewed by the CBI in Malaysia. Within a month, Chadha too made a similar offer to the CBI to cooperate in exchange for immunity.

These offers may well be orchestrated as a prelude to the burial music of the Bofors investigation. The sing-and-go-home offer can make the entire episode look like a case of procedures violated and norms ignored. With no public servant proved guilty of having lined his pocket, that can be a decent ending to a 12-year-long witch-hunt. And Vajpayee can ring the curtain down on a political horseplay, assuring that everybody has won and all must have prizes.

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