Nailing Mr Q

The arrest in Malaysia of Ottavio Quattrochhi is singularly well-timed from the point of view of the government bruised by this week's cen...

The arrest in Malaysia of Ottavio Quattrochhi is singularly well-timed from the point of view of the government bruised by this week8217;s censure motion in the Rajya Sabha. If the CBI is to be believed, it has been pressing the Malaysian authorities for a long time for Quattrochhi8217;s arrest and extradition. Inexplicably Malaysia has chosen this moment to start obliging. It is more than a year since the Italian businessman was charged in an Indian court with receiving a 7.3 million kickback in the Howitzer deal. The long delay in extraditing him could be due to the slow pace of legal proceedings in Malaysia and equally to the CBI8217;s own tardiness. Either way it is a disgrace. A 8220;preliminary arrest8221; should have come much earlier in light of the fact that as members of the Commonwealth, Malaysia and India have agreed to cooperate and provide mutual assistance in criminal matters. Legally and morally, it is right to try to bring all the accused in the Bofors case to justice. But the timing of the Italian8217;s arrestis suspect. Once again the Bofors legal process is proving more useful as political ammunition than in getting indictments from the courts.

The Italian businessmen is, of course, a major political liability for the Congress headed by Sonia Gandhi. If the government had planned to prevent the Congress-led attack on three chargesheeted BJP ministers from inflicting any more damage, it could not have chosen a better way than reviving the Bofors case and resuming its pursuit of Quattrochhi, a prime suspect. The CBI let it be known last year that it had documents to establish that the Italian had special access to the Gandhi family when Rajiv Gandhi was prime minister. Many employees of Snam Progetti, the company Quattrochhi worked for, are said to be lined up as witnesses. That is the background against which the Bofors case has resurfaced. The assumption just now would be that at the first whiff of Bofors, Congress guns will fall silent. It remains to be seen how the Congress does in fact respond. Its ammunition on the Babri Masjid demolition is in any case spent and so it would be 8220;logical8221; to wind down the tactics. As for progress on theprosecution side, there could be many a slip between the preliminary arrest and actual extradition hearings which must precede Quattrochhi8217;s return to India to stand trial. He himself is an old India hand: Recall his 8220;miraculous8221; escape a few years ago and his flight abroad in the nick of time. It would not be beyond the realm of the possible for a CBI team, fully armed with documents and staked out in Kuala Lumpur, to come away empty handed.

All this may sound excessively cynical. However, the tortuous course of the Bofors investigations in the hands of Congress governments and a succession of non-Congress governments alike makes cynicism unavoidable. The Vajpayee government has a chance to go beyond the political games and actually bring the case to trial. Win Chadha has returned voluntarily, there are documents pinpointing the involvement of the Hindujas, the Swedes have indicated Martin Ardbo can be cross-questioned in Sweden 8212; and Malaysia is cooperating on bringing in Ottavio Quattrochhi.