NEW DELHI, SEPTEMBER 30: The CBI is putting the final touches on its chargesheet against the powerful Hinduja brothers. This is the second chargesheet in the Bofors case and the agency is even thinking of filing a third - against some ``non-recipients'' in the Rs 64-crore payoff case. But the Hinduja chargesheet comes at a time when the CBI has reason to be frustrated.The agency has received replies - in response to its Letters Rogatory (LRs) sent to Austria, Luxembourg and the Channel Islands - that payments allegedly made to Win Chadha and Ottavio Quattrochhi have been further dispersed to different banks in Vienna and Switzerland. Soon the CBI will have to decide if it should send a fresh batch of LRs to these countries.But the slush funds pertaining to the 85 million Swedish Kroners ($10 million) deposited in the Swiss bank accounts of Pitco-Morensco-Moineao strain of the Hindujas apparently tell a different story.These bank documents were received by the CBI in December last year and will form the basis of the chargesheet against S P Hinduja, G P Hinduja and P P Hinduja.The chargesheet is expected to be filed later this month.Sources say the CBI has only been given proof of the monies deposited into three accounts in the Credit Suisse Bank, Hanover Manufacturers Trust and the Swiss Bank Corporation but there's no indication of whether the deposits are still in place or have been transferred out as was the pattern in other payments.It is to buttress its case against the Hindujas that a high-level CBI team visited Geneva in June this year and left a list of additional documents required from the Swiss courts with the Indian Embassy in Berne.Besides the request for information on where the 85 million SEK had been routed, the CBI requested the Swiss courts to give it the missing documents which have the identity of the persons opening the accounts in the three banks.Since the Indian request will have to be examined and routed through the circuitous route of the Cantonal Court and the Federal Court and may take years, the CBI has decided decided to go ahead and file the chargesheet against the Hindujas.Reacting to the latest statement issued by the Hinduja brothers that the Bofors deposits had no link with the Howitzer deal, agency sleuths said there was no doubt whatsoever about the Pitco-Moresco-Moineao payments being part of the Rs 64-crore kickbacks.The coded bank accounts had been traced in the early stages of the investigations and the final set of documents delivered by the Swiss courts had clinched the issue for them. The only question mark was about the post-deposit scenario of the Hinduja payments.
