DNA Exclusive: 'Buried' Bofors files to be dug up

Even as it waits for the Centre's nod to reopen the Bofors kickback case, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) top brass is learnt to have issued directions to key officers to locate the "buried" files connected to the case and prepare a fresh list of witnesses and accused who are "still alive".

Sources in the CBI told DNA that these instructions were issued at a meeting chaired by CBI Director Alok Kumar Verma following the DNA interview of the private investigator in the case, Michael J Hershman, who questioned the role of the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in the case.

The CBI is also planning to constitute a new team headed by a Joint Director-rank officer to re-investigate the case. Further, the agency is trying to get in touch with earlier investigators of the case — which continues to have huge political ramifications, especially now that Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi is set to be elevated as party president.

In a letter to the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), which is the administrative department in charge of the CBI, the agency has conveyed that it wants to file a Special Leave Petition (SLP) challenging the Delhi High Court judgment of May 31, 2005 quashing all charges against the Europe-based Hinduja brothers in the Bofors case. Sources said the CBI actually wanted to file the SLP as early as in 2005, but the then UPA government did not give its approval.

"The case is over 30 years old. Many witnesses and accused in the case have died, so a fresh list has to be made. Also, all the evidences collected needs to be analysed afresh so that the case can be argued strongly before the Supreme Court," said a senior CBI officer who was present in the high-level meeting.

The CBI could also seek assistance of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in probing financial aspects of the case. The ED had looked into Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) violations with regard to the case. FERA was repealed in 2000 and its provisions were incorporated into two new Acts: The Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) and the more-recent Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

A senior ED officer said, "We can only provide technical help to the agency as we were probing the FERA violations. All the files pertaining to those are with the agency. But we cannot probe the matter afresh till the time the court or government issues orders." It was then ED chief Bhure Lal who probed the issue of millions of dollars in bribes paid by Swedish arms manufacturer AB Bofors to influential politicians and people.

ED had then engaged the private investigator in the case, Michael J Hershman, the president and CEO of The Fairfax Group. Speaking to DNA, Hershman, who has already expressed his willingness to dispose before the CBI and help investigators with his findings, had questioned Rajiv Gandh's intention in trying to close the case, wondering why the case had been dumped.

DNA was the first media entity to have interviewed Hershman, who was assigned the job of probing violations of currency control laws in 1987, earlier this week. He had claimed that "millions were paid as bribe by Swedish arms manufacturer AB Bofors to influential politicians and people".

Earlier this year, the six-member Public Accounts Committee sub-committee on defence looked into non- compliance of certain aspects of the CAG report of 1986 on the Bofors howitzer gun deal. The panel members asked the CBI to move the Supreme Court against the Delhi High Court's 2005 order quashing proceedings in the Bofors case. Delhi High Court Judge RS Sodhi quashed all charges against the Hinduja brothers and the Bofors company and castigated the CBI for its handling of the case.

Before the 2005 verdict, another judge of the Delhi High Court, Justice JD Kapoor had, on February 4, 2004, exonerated Rajiv Gandhi in the case and directed framing of charge of forgery under Section 465 of the IPC against the Bofors company.