CPM questions move to 'help' Quattrochi

Additional Solicitor-General B Datta's submission in a London court, seeking to de-freeze two bank accounts of Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrochi, has set off a political storm. Even the CPI(M) the United Progressive Alliance's (UPA) constituent, has said the decision was "questionable".

The main Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has said the government's haste to return Quattrochi's money is unseemly, especially when the previous government had found evidence to link his accounts with a tainted firm in the Bofors guns case.

A petition has also been filed in the Supreme Court challenging the decision.

Quattrochi's accounts had been frozen to trace whether any money allegedly paid to him in the Bofors gun deal could be traced to these accounts. While Quattrochi himself has not been able to get the accounts back from the London court, the government's action is being perceived as a potentially embarrassing bail-out for him, allegedly on behalf of the Congress' top leaders.

The government's case is that there is no evidence which can link the two London accounts to the Bofors payoff case.

But all political parties, including the CPI(M), demanded to know why the government felt that such a statement should be filed with the Crown Prosecution.

"It is questionable why such legal opinion about the bank accounts has been conveyed to the British authorities, especially since he is still a wanted criminal in India. The government has to explain why and how this has happened," said the Left party in a statement.

Based on the Central Bureau of Investigation's submission that it did not have any evidence to keep Quattrochi's accounts frozen, Law Minister HR Bharadwaj said the CBI had decided in December that it would not pursue the matter in London. But the BJP described the move as sinister.

"Quattrochi has on his own appealed against the freezing of his accounts, but was not granted relief by the Crown Prosecution. In this situation, what is the need for the authorities here to voluntarily admit that there are no grounds left to keep the accounts frozen," said BJP spokesperson Arun Jaitley.

"There is evidence which links a bank account held by AE Services, a Swiss company which was paid by Bofors for landing the Indian defence deal, to Quattrochi. In this scenario, when you are tracing a money trail, such matters can jeopardise investigation," said Jaitley.

Jaitley said successive Congress governments had tried to bury the facts of Bofors, and it was only when the NDA government got tough in 1999 that things started moving.

"I want to know how much the prime minister knows about the matter, and why there is such interference with the CBI," he said.

"Former External Affairs Minister Madhav Sinh Solanki had to resign for tampering with the matter. The UPA government is heading the same way," he added.