| |
THE NATION:
BOFORS SCAM
Brothers
in Arms
Though
the CBI chargesheet against the Hindujas is silent on where the kickbacks
ended up, it is a landmark in the 13-year chase
By Sumit
Mitra and Sayantan Chakravarty
The
wheel of justice grinds slowly, but it surely flattens the fugitive when
he least expects it. And that too in unsuspectingly insignificant ways.
Last week, when the CBI prosecutors impleaded the Hinduja brothers in
the Bofors bribery case before Special Judge Ajit Bharihoke, it was difficult
to believe that the reputation of the richest Asian family in Britain
could be made to totter in such a congested room at Delhi's Tis Hazari
courts, crammed with wicker chairs, the screechy ceiling fans punctuating
the long-winded proceedings.
 |
| S.P.
Hinduja flanked by Cherie and Tony Blair. Partying with them gave
the Hindujas an aura of invincibility. |
The Hindujas
have for decades been among the most influential power-brokers in the
world, and were too big for the CBI-or so it seemed. As late as last Diwali,
they were holding the family's annual "inter-faith" dinner in
London with Tony and Cherie Blair as guests of honour and were flying
high with British nationality conferred on the two brothers in London-Srichand
and Gopichand-and peerages for them were well within sight. However, it
was on October 9, close to the next Diwali, when the "bad" news
reached them from Delhi.
The CBI
chargesheet was the result of 10 years of probe since the first Letters
Rogatory (LR) were filed in 1990 naming the Hindujas. Nothing happened
for years, in the course of which eight governments fell in India. In
December 1999, after nine years of waiting, the CBI obtained from the
Swiss the documents that actually showed the Hindujas as party to all
the shenanigans that have made the 1986 Bofors contract famous.
The documents
used in the chargesheet showed that Srichand and Gopichand, then Indian
nationals, had opened accounts called Tulip and Lotus with the Geneva
branch of Hanover Trust Company of New York in May 1986. These were in
the name of "Mc Intyre Corporation", a Hinduja entity. Across
the channel, it was the turn of Prakash P. Hinduja, the third brother
who is now a Swiss citizen, to open yet another account with Credit Suisse,
Geneva, in the name of "Mac Intyre Group", shown as a "newly
founded" Panamanian company, and, of course, with a shrewd spelling
variation. This account was given the password "Mont Blanc",
with an admirable sense of respect for the milieu. Between May and December
1986, the year when the Bofors contract got the go-ahead, "Tulip"
and "Lotus" and "Mont Blanc" ingested from the bankers
of Bofors a slush fund of Swedish Kroner (SEK) 80,797,709.92. It works
out to around Rs 37 crore at the current exchange rate. As the chargesheet
says, "Srichand P. Hinduja, Gopichand P. Hinduja and Prakash P. Hinduja
were ... party to the criminal conspiracy with Martin Ardbo (the then
president of AB Bofors) and others during the period 1985-87 and thereafter
and, in pursuance thereof, they also received commissions from AB Bofors."
On October
22 last year, the CBI had filed chargesheets against others-Gandhi family
friend Ottavio Quattrocchi, Bofors' India agent W.N. Chadha, former Bofors
president Martin Ardbo and former defence secretary S.K. Bhatnagar. That
chargesheet mentioned the late Rajiv Gandhi as a co-conspirator, but put
his name in column two meant for those not sent up for trial. Last year's
chargesheet showed the amounts released to Chadha's alleged account, Svenska,
at SEK 188,398,805 (today's value: Rs 86.66 crore) while the account of
A.E. Services, reportedly Quattrocchi's, received SEK 50,463,966 (around
Rs 23 crore). So, from the SEK 8,410,660,984 (Rs 3,868 crore at today's
exchange rate) gun deal, about 4 per cent was creamed off to be distributed
to a trusted agent who knew which bureaucratic palms to grease, an Italian
carpetbagger with contacts in the top home of the republic, and a family
of international power brokers with the reputation of having a finger
in every arms-trade pie.
Pg.2
Top
|
|
Relics
of old empires exist everywhere. Why can't the Mani Shankar Aiyars of
India let them be? asks INDIA TODAY Senior Editor Ravi Shankar in
