Caught in own web

Normally journalists covering the CBI have a tough time extracting any information whatsoever, but ever since the Quattrocchi bank account w...

Normally journalists covering the CBI have a tough time extracting any information whatsoever, but ever since the Quattrocchi bank account was unfrozen the bureau has been leaking like a sieve. Several newspersons have got their hands on top secret e-mail exchanges between the Crown Prosecution Service and the CBI. The leaks were meant to prove that the CBI was in the know about Additional Solicitor General B Datta8217;s London visit. But the leaked documents have backfired badly on the Government since it has in fact provided fresh ammunition on the Law Ministry8217;s dubious role.

It is within 10 days of the appointment of the new CBI director Vijay Shankar that Datta flew to London to de-freeze the Quattrocchi accounts, indicating that the Law Ministry waited till the retirement of former chief U S Mishra to act. Incidentally Chief Vigilance Commissioner P Shankar had expressed his reservations over the appointment of Vijay Shankar as both additional director and later director on the grounds that he seemed to have too many political backers.

More fox than farmer

Just an hour before he flew to Bangalore to sew up the BJP8217;s alliance with Deve Gowda8217;s son H D Kumaraswamy, the usually very forthcoming Venkaiah Naidu, when questioned by journalists in Delhi about the possibility of a BJP-Janata DalS tie-up, threw scribes completely off the scent. 8216;8216;How can I answer such a hypothetical question? It is like the Telegu proverb about two prospective in-laws fighting over whether the first grandson should be named Ramalingam or Somalingam when neither the wedding nor the pregnancy has taken place, let alone the birth,8217;8217; he remarked. In contrast, BJP spokesperson Prakash Javdekar rather immaturely almost gave the game away. Asked why BJP president Rajnath Singh had been too preoccupied to attend that morning8217;s Bofors rally, he grinned broadly and disclosed, 8216;8216;You can expect fireworks tomorrow.8217;8217;

Of course the man who managed to put the Congress completely off its guard was Gowda himself who kept reiterating that he would never dream of tying up with anti-secular forces. After Kumaraswamy8217;s coup, Gowda shed copious tears over his son8217;s defection, but some suspected they were crocodile tears. Others felt that he had a triple cross game plan up his sleeve. Gowda could be more wily fox than the humble farmer he claims to be.

Ciao with trail

There was a clear distinction between the accounts and companies linked to Ottavio Quattrocchi and those of the other suspects in the Bofors pay-offs. The Quattrocchi companies and accounts did not have any earlier payments from Bofors and some of the accounts were activated only days before the gun negotiations were completed. An indication that the bank account holder was either an amateur, overconfident or just plain greedy to get his hands on the money, was the speed with which he transferred the money from one bank account to another. Within a space of a few months the money was transferred from banks in Zurich to Geneva and onwards to the Cayman Islands. Seasoned money launderers allow the money to remain undisturbed in the same bank for years so that the trail is lost. Or, they make sure to cover their tracks by using many code names, which was not done in this case.

There was another clue left behind for the investigators. The parent company of A E Services8212;the company linked to Quattrocchi8212;is called Ciaou Anstalt. The acronym stands for Consortium Information Assimilation Output Unit. Minus the 8216;u8217;, Ciao means goodbye in Italian.

Pilgrims, not so progressive

A woman journalist who asked to accompany Jaswant Singh on his historic trip across the border via the Khokhrapur-Munnabao land route on January 30 to visit the Nani ka Mandir shrine in Baluchistan was turned down. She felt she was being discriminated against. The organisers tried to explain that since only 60 to 70 visas would be issued they were taking only genuine pilgrims and not journalists. Probably they are wiser after Advani8217;s trip to Pakistan last year where he was accompanied by a whole retinue of newshounds. But that still does not explain why there are no women pilgrims in the group.

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Jaswant Singh8217;s son Manvendra is the MP from Barmer, from where the border-crossing will take place, and he is hoping he will have the privilege of being the first Indian to cross the border in 40 years from that point.

Unanswered question

One of the many unanswered questions in the Bofors case is why the NDA government did not file an appeal in the Supreme Court against the Delhi High Court judgment of February 2004 that no charge had been made out against the public servants, including Rajiv Gandhi, mentioned in the CBI chargesheet. Only the Hindujas were to be chargesheeted separately.

One explanation is that by the time the CBI received copies of Justice J D Kapoor8217;s judgment, dates for the parliamentary elections had been announced and it was feared that the Election Commission might raise objections. Another is that the Vajpayee government, confident of re-election, wanted to wait till after the polls and a change in the Supreme Court composition. With the UPA Government being voted to power, all chances of an appeal went out of the window.