Judicial burial for Bofors: BJP

The Bharatiya Janata Party today termed the judgment of the Delhi High Court quashing charges against Europe-based Hinduja brothers as a "glaring example of judicial burial of a corruption case" and alleged that it had been catalysed by a collusion between the "powerful accused" and the CBI "pressurised" by the political executive.

BJP spokesman and former law minister Arun Jaitley alleged at a press conference that the CBI had been "pressurised" by successive Congress governments to "sabotage the investigation" in the high-profile case.

"This is not a judgment on merits. It does not hold that kickbacks were not paid. It proceeds on a mere premise that documents proving bribery and kickbacks were contained in certified copies," he alleged.

Alleging that the reasoning contained in the judgment is "questionable", Jaitley said it was a "glaring example of a judicial burial of a corruption case which had shaken the conscience of the entire nation".

The noted lawyer wondered how the court discovered that Rs 250 crore were spent on the investigation and insisted that only a "minuscule fraction" of the amount had actually been spent on the probe.

Meanwhile, the Congress today demanded an apology from all those who had launched "unsubstantiated and baseless" campaign against late Rajiv Gandhi.

Party spokesperson Jayanti Natarajan said the party called upon all people having any "shred of morality and decency" who had been instrumental in the campaign to apologise to the nation, Sonia Gandhi and her family. Asked whether this included former Opposition leaders now in the party and the government, she said, "We are leaving none."