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In last days of UPA govt, Quattrocchi is off CBI’s wanted list

Amitav RanjanPosted: Apr 28, 2009 at 1359 hrs IST


New Delhi With just three weeks to go before the Congress-led UPA government’s term ends, Ottavio Quattrocchi, the lone surviving suspect in the Bofors payoff case, no longer figures in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)’s list of wanted persons.

The 12-year Interpol Red Corner Notice (RCN) against the Italian businessman has been taken off the “Interpol Notices” section of the agency’s website.


Ostensibly, the CBI’s move is based on the legal opinion of Attorney General Milon Banerjee dated October 28 last year. According to the opinion, a copy of which has been obtained by The Indian Express, Banerjee calls the RCN “a continuing embarrassment.”


Banerjee writes: “The CBI is under an obligation to have the matters set right at the Interpol level as there is no basis on which the RCN can continue...I am of the firm opinion that immediate action should be taken to withdraw the Red Corner Notice”.


When asked when and why the Red Corner Notice was withdrawn, CBI Director Ashwani Kumar told The Indian Express tonight: “TheGovernment will reply to the issue because the matter is sub judice.”


Sources said the CBI is expected to inform the Special Judge of a Delhi court of this decision when hearing comes up on April 30. The agency is expected to argue that it has gone by the AG’s opinion.


The push for withdrawing the RCN came in October 2008 after Quattrocchi’s counsel filed a “protest” to the CBI “complaining against the continuation and legal validity of the Red Corner Notice issued by the Interpol Secretariat General”.


When the matter came to CBI’s Director (Prosecution) S K Sharma, he wrote, on October 23, that the RCN was no longer valid as the warrant of arrest dated February 6, 1997 — on which the RCN was based — had been annulled by a subsequent warrant of November 5, 1999.


Sharma recommended that the Law Ministry’s opinion be sought on the issue. That same day (October 23), Secretary (Personnel) passed on the proposal to the Law Ministry, which immediately forwarded it to the AG who gave his opinion the very next day.


“The whole purpose of a warrant of arrest is to secure presence of the accused,” said the AG. “This is possible by extradition when the accused is abroad. But two attempts have failed and the judgements indicate that there are no good grounds for extradition. The warrant cannot remain in force forever. Therefore, the warrant dated February 1997 would lose its validity, particularly in view of the successive failed attempts of the CBI to extradite the accused in Malaysia and recently in Argentina,” the AG said.


Sources have confirmed to The Indian Express that last week Minister of State for Personnel Prithviraj Chavan and Law Minister Hansraj Bhardwaj held meetings with the CBI Director on the issue. When contacted, Chavan said: “I will have to find out what the position is. The agency is doing independent work.”


London to Buenos Aires: the bending


Taking Quattrocchi off the wanted list is the final action of the UPA in freeing the last of the principal accused of the Bofors taint:


• September 2005: CBI proposes filing Special Leave Petitition challenging May 31, 2005 order of the Delhi High Court in which proceedings against the Hindujas were quashed. The next month, Law Ministry says SLP need not be filed.


• Even as CBI was pushing diplomatic channels to uncover Quattrocchi’s money trail from Lugano, Switzerland, to the Rs 21 crore frozen in his London bank accounts, the Government sent Additional Solicitor General B Dutta in December 2005 to London who told UK officials that “no useful purpose would be served by maintaining the restraint order.”


• In January 2006, Quattrocchi’s accounts were defrozen and on January 16, the money withdrawn .


• Following the defeat in the extradition case against Quattrocchi in Argentina in 2007, the CBI was forced to withdraw its appeal on explicit Government orders.


(Tomorrow: What the AG said to justify the Red Corner Notice withdrawal — and what he did not. The report on the Mulayam assets case will follow)