Bofors case: Parliamentary panel questions DoPT secy

CBI, which has expressed its openness to file a special leave petition against the 2005 Delhi High Court order on Bofors case aquittal of the Hinduja brothers, will take a final view on the matter in next two days before the case comes up for hearing before the Supreme Court on February 2, the agency told a Parliamentary panel on Tuesday.

This was after Attorney-General KK Venugopal wrote to the government that the agency should not file an SLP into the matter.

The contentious issue of Bofors came in for a threadbare discussion in a meeting of a sub-committee of Public Accounts Committee when DoPT Secretary Ajay Mittal, CBI Director Alok Kumar Verma and its Special Director Rakesh Asthana appeared before the panel.

Panel members grilled the DoPT on Venugopal's recent letter to the ministry in which he said that "now more than 12 years have passed. Any SLP filed before the Supreme Court at this stage in my view is likely to be dismissed by the Court on account of the long delay itself."

The AG had also said in the letter that since the present government has also been in position for more than three years now, in the circumstances, the long delay in approaching the Court, will be difficult to satisfactorily explain to the Court.

When the PAC sub committee headed by BJD's B Mahtab asked the DoPT Secretary regardng the AG's letter, the latter explained that when CBI being an independent agency sought the ministry's view on the matter, the ministry sought the views of the AG, whose opinion has been conveyed to the agency.

CBI on its part said it has received the AG's opinion and will take a decision on the matter before Feburary 2 when the petition filed by a BJP leader Ajay Agrawal comes up for hearing in the Supreme Court on February 2.

Panel members also asked the CBI why the agency was not taking forward the matter on the basis of "new facts", which came out in 2011 when an Income Tax Tribunal ruled that Rs. 41 crore was paid in bribes to Ottavio Quattrocchi, an Italian businessman once considered a friend of the Gandhi family, and Win Chadha, the Bofors agent in India.

When contacted, the Chairman of the PAC sub committee, B Mahtab told DNA, "Investigation of CBI and filing of chargehseet by CBI is only part of the full story of Bofors. Major issue is the purchases and the incongruity therein.

Our intention is to find out why the system could not stand up to wrong doers."

BJP MP Agrawal in a separate missive urged Attorney General K K Venugopal to direct the CBI to make its stand clear in the case. In his letter to the AG, Agrawal alleged that the decision not to file reply in his matter has apparently been taken at a junior level and "it is being ensured that the Bofors case collapses in the Supreme Court."

Hearing the appeal filed by Agrawal on January 16, the apex court had asked him to explain his locus in filing an appeal as a third person.

Some members in the Parliamentary panel on Tuesday also wondered that what will happen to other important cases related to triple talaq and Ram Janambhoomi in which people not related to the case have filed petitions.

The PAC sub-committee is examining the issue of non-compliance of timely submission of action-taken notes (ATN) on the Boforspurchase based on CAG reports of 1989 and 1990.

In the earlier meetings, the Parliamentary panel had asked the defence ministry over why CBI was not given permission to file a special leave petition against the 2005 Delhi High Court order. Earlier in a written reply, the CBI had told the panel that it wanted to pursue the case but could not do so since the permission for filing the SLP was denied by the then UPA government.

Wjhen the panel asked the defecne ministry to "explain the reason as to why the ministry failed to give permission for appealing against the judgement of the Delhi High Court relating to the Bofors case in 2005 even as the CBI desired so", the defence ministry had said that the question related to DoPT.