ELECTION 99
COLUMNISTS
DIARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
ELECTIONS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ARCHIVES

Search Rediff

The Bofors conundrum continues

Thanks to pulp-fiction and the movies, the least sophisticated of criminals knows the importance of wearing gloves to prevent leaving fingerprints. Thanks to Richard Nixon, every politician knows the importance of never being caught on tape. In other words, finding hard physical evidence is probably tougher than it has ever been. And never more so, perhaps, than in the Bofors case.

Fingerprints, please remember, will be wiped out after a while. Tapes will disintegrate in the course of time. And the Bofors case has been dragging on for a good dozen years -- more than ample time to hide evidence. Fortunately, in the computer age it is next to impossible to wipe out all traces of money transactions. (Five decades after World War II ended, it is still possible to trace Nazi gold in Swiss banks.) However, all the documents in the world may not be enough to put on a proper trial. A judge would require witnesses for that; the question, however, is whether they can be found.

The men who can provide evidence of what exactly happened in the Bofors pay-off case are scattered across Europe and Asia. Bringing them in from Kuala Lumpur, Stockholm, Dubai, perhaps even London is a gigantic task. (The only man available in Delhi is Bhatnagar, the former defence secretary). Who are these men? Perhaps it is time for a status report:

Win Chaddha was once Bofors' agent in India. He left the country almost as soon as the scandal broke out. Amazingly, his passport was renewed at an Indian mission in the United States. (Rajiv Gandhi was prime minister at the time.) Chaddha then got a passport from the small Central American nation of Belize; this was subsequently cancelled thanks to Indian diplomatic initiative. A man without a country, Chaddha is now a recluse in the United Arab Emirates. His wife is dead and he himself is ailing; if there is a weak link in the Bofors case, it is most likely to be Chaddha.

Another man without a country is Ottavio Quattrocchi, the Italian businessman who was such a power in Delhi in Rajiv Gandhi's day. The documents received from Switzerland point unambiguously to his connivance in the Bofors pay-off. Quattrocchi stayed on in India until Narasimha Rao became the prime minister. He left India only after the Central Bureau of Investigation began to go after him semi-seriously. (The file requesting further action stayed with the then minister of personnel, Margaret Alva, until after he had fled!)

Unfortunately for Quattrocchi, Interpol has accepted the CBI's plea that there is a case against him. The result is that he cannot return to his native Italy, nor anywhere else in the European Union; but he has found a temporary refuge in Malaysia. Extradition from there is a grey area, so he is safe for the moment but this could change. (His wife, who is also supposedly a recipient of the kickbacks, has not yet been named in the chargesheet.)

The scene now shifts to London, home to the Hinduja brothers, the favourite butt of a section of the opposition. As it happens, they are British citizens. Again, unlike Quattrocchi, the CBI hasn't presented any real evidence proving their complicity in the scandal. Britain, like the rest of the European Union, will fulfil any reasonable request from Interpol; but the authorities definitely won't arrest a British citizen simply because of mere allegations.

In any case, this is a purely hypothetical situation. The Hindujas may have received commissions from Bofors for deals unconnected to India. They are, after all, businessmen with dealings all over the globe; if pressed, they could simply say that they received money for dealings with, say, Brazil or perhaps Iran.

Finally, there is Martin Ardbo, the man who is most likely to know all the details. It was the jottings in his diary that are amongst the most intriguing pieces of evidence. He wrote, for instance, of a "Q" who was close to "R". He wrote of a "Nero" (which some have interpreted as 'Nehru'). Finally, that diary mentions a "Gandhi Trust lawyer." Unfortunately, the Swedish government will not willingly order his extradition. (I believe even public opinion in Sweden is against this.)

That leaves the documents received from Switzerland and elsewhere. And it leaves a bunch of unanswered questions -- such as why Rajiv Gandhi pushed the deal in such a hurry that the principal secretary, Sarla Grewal, was left in the dark... But is circumstantial evidence, even backed up by files, good enough for the courts?

T V R Shenoy