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A conspiracy of silence

When someone has been elusive for 14 years, what is a fortnight's delay in announcing his detention? The rhetorical question sums up the Congress-led government's brazen defence of its soft, if not collusive, attitude towards Ottavio Quattrocchi, a key accused in the Rs.64 crore Bofors payoff case. The conspiracy of silence over the detention of the Italian wheeler-dealer — held in Argentina on February 6 on the basis of a 1997 Interpol Red Corner Notice — is profoundly self-implicating. Was the 17-day delay a result, as the Leader of the Opposition L.K. Advani suggests with good reason, of a crass political ploy to prevent the issue from influencing the State Assembly elections in Punjab and Uttarakhand? Or was there also a deeper Machiavellian conspiracy to continue shielding Mr. Quattrocchi from the long arm of the law? It is outrageous that a full six days after the latest detention, in a hearing relating to the de-freezing of two of Mr. Quattrocchi's London bank accounts, the Additional Solicitor General misled the Supreme Court by omitting to inform it about the action by the Argentine authorities.

The Bofors criminal case might have taken a radically different turn had the Narasimha Rao regime not allowed the big bird to fly away in 1993 — in a shocking episode of official collusion. Mr. Quattrocchi, as a close friend of the Nehru-Gandhi family, enjoyed unrestricted access to the highest reaches of power when the Rs.1437 crore howitzer contract was concluded in 1986. It is well established in the CBI's investigation that the deal swung in favour of the Swedish armaments manufacturer only after the `Q' mentioned in the Martin Ardbo diary came into the picture, in late 1985. Swiss bank documents conclusively show Mr. Quattrocchi to be the owner and controller of secret accounts into which Bofors paid huge bribes, exploiting the fiction of `A.E. Services Ltd.' The UPA Government, clearly under pressure, gave the Bofors case a legal burial by not appealing against the unpersuasive and convoluted Delhi High Court ruling of 2004, which held there was no evidence of bribery in connection with the howitzer purchase. Last year, officialdom deliberately scored another own goal: notwithstanding the Red Corner Notice, it conspired to lift the freeze on Mr. Quattrocchi's London bank accounts, upheld by two British courts, by falsely stating that there was no evidence to link the deposits with the Bofors payoffs. All eyes will be fixed on how the CBI, facing a tough deadline, handles the extradition proceedings against a notorious fugitive from justice. L'affaire Bofors continues to remind us that the cover-up of corruption is as bad as the original act itself.

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