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Journalism of Courage
NEW DELHI, Feb 22: In a new twist to the 13-year old Bofors gun deal controversy, the Supreme Court today directed Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi, alleged to have got over seven million dollars as kickback from the deal, to appear in the trial court on March 15.
A Division Bench comprising Justices G T Nanavati and S N Phukan also directed Quattrocchi, who at present is at Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, to remain in India for a period of two weeks after March 15 to facilitate his interrogation by CBI.
The Bench, however, made it clear that “this order shall not preclude the trial court from passing appropriate orders for his (Quattrocchi’s) appearance before the court.”
The order came on a special leave petition filed by Quattrocchi seeking quashing of the arrest warrant issuedagainst him by the trial court in 1997. The Bench said they were not quashing the arrest warrant as sought by the petitioner in view of the present order.
The counsel stated that “petitioner (Quattrocchi) will have no objection in appearing before the court and to execute a bond regarding his appearance in the court as and when required in the (Bofors) case.”
Counsel, senior advocate Rajiner Singh, said, “Quattrocchi will also cooperate with the investigating agency and shall remain in India for a period of two weeks for the purpose of interrogation.”
He had submitted that he was willing to be interrogated but wanted to avoid the humiliation of being arrested and made to rot in the jail.
The Bench criticised the CBI for the tardy progress in the investigation and asked why it has not been able to pinpoint charges against a person other than Quattrocchi for these many years.
Singh said, “There were several bureaucrats who were party to the gun deal but no arrest warrant has been obtained againstthem by the CBI.”
He alleged that “there was lot of politics involved in the case. The case comes up and goes down depending on the political parties in power.”
