What Justice J.D. Kapoor thus recorded in February 2004 is telling: "Even to the pointed query made by this court as to evidence showing the receipt of bribe money, if any...", Rohatgi "...appearing for CBI, candidly and fairly said that till date there was none."
In fact, CBI records available to Outlook include a spate of letters and e-mails from the Crown Prosecution Services (CPS), London, to the CBI, seeking clarity on a range of issues ever since the two Quattrocchi accounts were frozen in 2003. In fact, the CPS had written to the CBI on April 29, 2004, when the BJP-led NDA was in power, seeking evidence linking the money in the accounts to the alleged Bofors bribes. The CPS again wrote to the CBI on August 3, 2004, seeking "reasonable grounds" to "continue with the restraint order" against Quattrocchi's accounts. On January 24, 2005, CPS sent a communication inquiring whether Quattrocchi had been declared a 'proclaimed offender'.
What emerges from this CPS-CBI exchange is that the agency couldn't find any links between the alleged Bofors money paid to Quattrocchi to the two frozen accounts. A fact acknowledged by Rohatgi before the Delhi HC when the NDA was in power.
Cut to 2005, and the CBI continued with its opaqueness in the Bofors imbroglio. What has raised eyebrows is that many crucial details were left out in the brief the agency prepared for additional solicitor general B. Datta before he left for London in December 2005. Outlook has learnt that LRs (letters rogatory) sent to the Bahamas, Switzerland and other countries by the CBI seeking further information on the money trail to Quattrocchi's London accounts are still pending. But the CBI and the law ministry did not include this matter in the Datta brief. This, senior CBI officials say, would have been enough to keep the accounts frozen.
Even more surprising is that present CBI director Vijay Shankar had travelled to the Bahamas as an additional director—to establish the money trail. In that case, why did he fail to instruct his officers on this before they briefed Datta? A red corner notice against Quattrocchi was also pending and the extradition against him is still valid. But, for some inexplicable reason, these were also kept out of the brief made out for Datta.
Curiously, the brief wasn't revised though Datta rescheduled his London trip, starting December 22 instead of December 8. The charges framed in the chief metropolitan magistrate's court against Quattrocchi continue to exist and would have provided adequate material to keep the accounts frozen, say senior CBI officials. However, this was ignored when Datta finally went to London.
U.S. Mishra, as CBI director, had sought sanction for a CBI officer to accompany Datta to London and brief the CPS. But the Integrated Finance Division declined, citing financial reasons. "In a probe that has dragged on for 20 years and cost Rs 300 crore, funds for an additional CBI officer's trip wouldn't have made much difference," a senior official with the agency told Outlook. Well, the CBI's role in the Q issue is only getting more mysterious.
