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More Q's Than A's

The CBI trips over itself in the latest Quattrocchi goof-up<a href=pti_coverage.asp?gid=80 target=_blank> Updates</a>

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More Q's Than A's
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  • On October 7, 2005, additional solicitor general K.P. Pathak struck the first blow in the 15-page legal opinion he submitted to the CBI. It favoured Quattrocchi. Pathak based his opinion on the May 31, 2005, judgement of the Delhi HC in the Bofors case against the Hindujas. The court had ruled that the documents furnished by the investigating agency against them were not duly authenticated. Pathak observed in his noting: "I was surprised to find that even in Quattrocchi's case, the very same documents without due authentication have been relied on." But this was not true. The CBI is on legal record that the "May 31 judgement has no impact on the case against Quattrocchi" and that "the Swiss documents which have been relied upon against Quattrocchi are a different set of documents received from Switzerland".

  • Pathak did Quattrocchi another favour by observing that "far from the prosecution deriving any benefit from Quattrocchi's case for the purpose of the present case, it appears clear that the case against Quattrocchi would necessarily fail in view of the reasoning of the high court, since there too there are no authenticated documents". Pathak's "legal opinion" even helped Quattrocchi's lawyers to get the money frozen in his London accounts released and is likely to be used to help him get away this time too.

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  • The two CBI officers sent to Argentina are special director M.L. Sharma and director of prosecution, S.K. Sharma. It was the latter who played a key role in the release of the Quattrocchi's funds from his London bank account in 2006. In fact, S.K. Sharma did not even protest the release of the money. Instead, it was left to a British official, Shane Naniappan, a senior crown prosecutor, to raise questions that should have been raised by the Indian authorities. In a private fax to a senior CBI officer on January 18 last year, Naniappan put the CBI on the mat revealing that additional solicitor general B. Dutta had given "unequivocal instructions that no useful purpose would be served by maintaining the restraint order because there was no longer any reasonable prospect of the case against Mr Quattrocchi proceeding to trial". Clearly, Dutta was echoing S.K. Sharma's views and the former's submissions are sure to be used by Quattrocchi's lawyers in Argentina.

  • According to the government, there was no delay in translating the voluminous documents into Spanish. But Outlook has learnt that the process was initiated rather late in the day and much time was wasted even as the government debated on what course of action to take.

  • The government let it be known that India didn't have a valid extradition treaty with Argentina. But this was not true. As lawyer Ajay K. Agarwal, who filed the PIL in the SC in the Bofors case, pointed out, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru himself had stated in Parliament that the treaty signed between British India and Argentina on May 22, 1889, was still in force. The mea countered that the pre-Independence extradition treaty was no longer in force with the enactment of the Extradition Act, 1962. However, the same act notes that the extradition treaty extends itself to all treaties in force "before 15th day of August 1947".

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BJP MPs led by Rajnath Singh stage a Parliament walkout over the issue

Now, going back in time, it must be noted that during the 17-year-old investigation non-Congress governments too failed to nail Quattrocchi. During the NDA regime, the CBI could not secure Quattrocchi's extradition from Malaysia. Union science and technology minister Kapil Sibal, who's fast emerging as the UPA's chief legal spokesperson, focuses on the Vajpayee government's response when Quattrocchi was arrested in '99. He says though news of the detention came on October 22, 1999, the NDA government took a little over four months (on March 7, 2000) to seek his extradition. "Compare this with the UPA...in less than a month, we are flying a team to Buenos Aires to seek Quattrocchi's extradition," Sibal stresses. But this does not quite explain the 17-day silence on the arrest or the snail-paced approach in the matter when it was aware of a 30-day deadline.

Anyway, the CBI subsequently lost its case in Malaysia. Sibal alleges this is because it mounted a weak defence, forcing the court there to observe that the charges were "duplicitous, vague and ambiguous", that it was impossible to admit the case as there was no proper description of the offences, not even a "summary of facts". Finally, the Kuala Lumpur court rejected the request for extradition on the grounds that it could not do so on the basis of "mere suspicion". The BJP's "real motivation", Sibal concluded, "was not to pin down Quattrocchi, but to keep the issue alive so that it can make political capital".

Clearly, as long as the case is not concluded honourably, Mr Q will continue to be a source of embarrassment for Sonia Gandhi. Visits to India— innocent or otherwise—by members of his family will continue to create suspicion. So, was it a coincidence that Quattrocchi's son Massimo was in India between February 13-22, at the same time when Italian PM Romano Prodi was in the country? Was it another coincidence that Massimo was spotted at the birthday celebrations of a prominent BJD MP's sister-in-law? Perhaps, and perhaps not, but till the Q affair is laid to rest, there will always be room for suspicion.

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