BOFORS Part II. To be unravelled in this episode: who is the holder of the mysterious sixth bank account in Switzerland? A decade after the multi- billion dollar pay- off on the Bofors- Howitzer gun deal made news, bringing down a government in the process, investigators say the key to the Bofors payoff lies in this sixth frozen account. The problem is, the antecedents of the account are unknown except to a handful of low- profile people.
And the Special Investigation Team ( SIT ) of the CBI , poring over the 500- page bank document, is now realising that unravelling the mystery is not going to be easy. When CBI director Joginder Singh travelled to Berne in January to receive the contentious Bofors papers, he told reporters that the "real Bofors investigation will now begin". But by the time the week ended, it was clear that it would take more than a motley team of officers to put together the missing links.
The CBI chief began by saying that no special team was needed. By January 30, he announced a team headed by Joint Director L. Revansiddaiah to go through the bank account statements. And, by February 1, Singh had fixed April 30, 1997, as the deadline for sewing up the case.
According to sources in the SIT , the papers have revealed the existence of at least five bank accounts codenamed Svenska, Mont Blanc, Lotus, Tulip and AE Services belonging to the Hindujas, Octavio Quattrocchi and middleman Washeshwar Nath Win Chaddha. Chaddha, who has Parkinsons disease, lives in Dubai and is a pale shadow of his past self.
By April, CBI officers say, the entire bunch of Bofors papers may reach here. This may also include details of the shadowy sixth account and its operator.
Clearly, the Bofors probe has come a long way from the time when Rajiv Gandhi claimed on the floor of the Lok Sabha that no payoffs had been made and his subsequent amendment that "payoffs were not made to anyone in my family". Investigating Swedish officials now admit the payoffs were indeed made. Michel Andre Fels, the man pursuing the Bofors investigations, told Indian journalists in Berne that money had been paid to some top Indians, but nothing was left of it in Swedish banks now. The money, he indicated, had been transferred to several banks outside the country.
The SIT team is finding the going tough. "The number of names in the documents are confusing. Well have to figure out whether they were fronts for influential people or members of several trusts who opened accounts in their names," says a source. Much of the documents are in French and German and the services of RAW experts from the Cabinet Secretariat have been requisitioned. But no official is willing to proffer an opinion on the main question, whether any member of the Gandhi family was a recipient of the payoff.
But in an atmosphere shrouded in intrigue, some loose ends are beginning to tie up. CBI sources say that Quattrocchis role is going to be put under a microscope. In fact, there are indications that the Bofors investigations will be linked to the hawala payoffs. For instance, the CBI top brass feels that the statement of key hawala accused S. K. Jain will prove useful. In the statement, Jain had accused Quattrocchi of swinging deals in the power sector with the help of his clout with the Gandhi family. Another strand of investigation, sources say, connects Quattrocchi to Sonia Gandhis family in Italy.
Swedish officials chasing the Bofors pay-off have stumbled upon the fact that Quattrocchi had opened a Swiss bank account in 1986 to stash away large sums of money. Was this the Bofors money? And who are its trustees? A CBI source confirmed that the information regarding Quattrocchis account is contained in the bank documents with the CBI . If a link is established, arrest warrants could be put out for him.
THE point is, what did the CBI do when Quattrocchi was here in India? His name was doing the rounds in the Hazira- Bijapur- Jagdishpur ( HBJ ) pipeline scam of the 80s. He was named by S. K. Jain. Yet given his proximity to the Gandhis, especially Sonia, he was handled with kidgloves and allowed to get away," says lawyer Prashant Bhushan. Not surprisingly, Quattrocchi is not named in the Bofors FIR filed by the CBI in 1990.
There are other links as well. Martin Ardbo, president of Bofors and the man who negotiated the gun deal with the Indian Government and the kickbacks had made notes referring to "Q and his links to R". His diary, now with the CBI , noted a meeting in Geneva with a "Gandhi Trustee lawyer" on July 2, 1987, three months after the controversy broke out.
So why did the litigation between the Indian authorities and the Swedish government to get the Bofors papers take nearly five years? Top CBI officials admit that there were many flaws in the letters rogatory (letters of request) sent by them to governments around the world. Indian authorities were unaware of what it meant to chase international financial deals. For instance, when a CBI team landed up at a Svenska office in Panama, they were told that Svenska had not paid them their salaries, so they could not help. Also, there was no forwarding address. Millions of dollars were spent on many such fruitless expeditions.
There were several strong elements of slapstick in the CBI investigation. While the JPC set up by the Rajiv Gandhi government was largely farcical, there was one note of dissent put up by the then MP Alladi Aruna, who drew up a list of people he said should be questioned immediately. This included the then Indian ambassador to Sweden, Bhupat Rai Oza, Joint Secretary, Defence, Naik, Anil Kumar former director of the Enforcement Directorate, B. P. Malhotra and J. S. Arora, advocates for Win Chaddha, Gopi Arora, the then secretary, I & B , Martin Ardbo, Swedish prosecutor L. Ringberg and the Hinduja brothers, Gopichand and Srichand. A decade later, action is finally going to be taken. "We are going to now have a close look at the note put up by Aruna," says a source. Likely to be questioned: ex- defence secretary S. K. Bhatnagar, former chief of army staff Gen. K. Sundarji, ex- ministers Arun Singh and Arun Nehru.
Political sources say there had been considerable opposition from within the establishment. V. P. Singh, who made poll promises on Bofors, found it difficult to deal with the pro- Rajiv bureaucracy. When he told the then CBI chief R. Mukherjee to file an FIR in the case, he was told that until the aggrieved party i. e. defence secretary S. K. Bhatnagar made a complaint, the agency could not move. Bhatnagar, when summoned, convinced V. P. Singh that no complaint could be lodged at that stage. Result: in the 11 months that the Raja was in power, the investigation got nowhere.
But the bank papers have given crucial pointers. One, they confirm that a public servant was a recipient of the monies. Secondly, an independent investigation carried out by the Swedish National Audit Board, now in the possession of the CBI , confirms that payoffs were made into various Swiss banks Credit Suisse, Swiss Bank Corporation and a host of other smaller banks in Geneva.
The die is cast. If in the next couple of months, all the bank papers reach here, the Bofors investigation can finally reach a take-off stage. But thrown in are many political compulsions. Officials say that a mere investigation could not take long if there is the political will. But when the stakes are as high as in Bofors, theres just no telling.
LOTUS TULIP MONT BLANC AE SERICES SVENSKA Who operate the six account ?
These accounts are allegedly operated by the Hindujas, Quattrocchi and win Chaddha. Money from the five accounts were deposited in the sixth account.
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