Rupees 250 crore investigation on Bofors scandal that yielded no results

India’s major Bofors saga has been closed. After two decades of investigations, a Delhi Court has allowed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to close the country’s biggest corruption scandal that brought down the Rajiv Gandhi Government..The Tis Hazari Court of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Vinod Yadav allowed the case against an Italian businessman, Ottavio Quattrochi (pictured) in the Bofors kickback scam to be closed, accepting the CBI’s plea to withdraw the case. The court observed that Rs 250 crore had already been spent on looking at the merits of the case. The judge said “When will this spending end? Attempts to extradite Quattrocchi have also failed”..ET reports the case relates to Rs 1,437-crore deal between Swedish arms maker Bofors AB and the Indian Government in 1986. The company would supply 410 units of 155mm Howitzer field guns. The deal was signed in March 1986, and soon after, allegations emerged that Quattrocchi, close to the then PM Rajiv Gandhi’s family, brokered the deal. Quattrocchi has been accused of receiving a payoff for the Bofors artillery guns purchased for the Indian Army in the 1980s. However, Quattrocchi never appeared before any court in India in the over two-decade-old case..The CBI in its closure report in the Bofors scam had earlier told the court that it had received no fresh instructions in the case. The investigating agency pleaded before the court that Income Tax Appellate Tribunal ruling on kickbacks paid in Bofors case was “nothing new” and its application for withdrawing the proceedings against Quattrocchi should be allowed. CBI made the same disclosure even after the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal had ruled that illegal commissions had been paid to Quattrocchi n the Bofors scam..The CBI has maintained that the investigations into Bofors scam have hit a dead end and wants the case closed citing lack of evidence. The CBI’s attempts to extradite Quattrocchi have failed several times. The CBI had filed an application for closure of case against Quattrocchi stating that no material evidence has come up after two decades and the case be closed in the public interest..Advocate Agarwal had filed an application before the court stating that the high-profile case against Quattrocchi should not be closed and he should be treated as complainant in the case..The process to give a silent burial to the Bofors case began in 2004 when the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance Government came to power. The Government first removed the freeze on Quattrocchi’s accounts in London. The Interpol later withdrew the notice against the Italian businessman..Public interest litigator and activist, Prashant Bhushan told a news agency that it was totally wrong to close the case when there was clear evidence of wrongdoing in the case..Water Resources and Minority Affairs Minister and senior party leader, Salman Khursheed commenting on the judgment said, “The case has been through several levels of judicial adjudication but when a report has to be filed for closure, it has to go to a magistrate and the magistrate has to apply his mind and finally come to a conclusion. If the magistrate has accepted the closure report, that should be end of the matter”..Do you think it was justified for the government to spend this huge amount on this case which ended being buried?.The country cannot afford to spend hard-earned money of the people of this country on Quattrocchi’s extradition which has already cost Rs 250 crore. So much money was spent for nothing. That apart, the badly-handled case has left the general impression that in India justice can be sabotaged through the influence of money flaunted by arms dealers. The whole Indian system seems to have failed in this unenlightening saga that lasted nearly two decades.