NEW DELHI: Ajay Agarwal, who has been pursuing the Rs 64 crore Bofors pay-off case, filed an application in the Supreme Court on Wednesday seeking an early hearing of his plea challenging the Delhi High Court’s 2005 verdict that quashed all charges, including those against the Hinduja brothers.
Sources in the Supreme Court and Registry indicated that the plea could be heard within a week, considering the case’s sensitivity.
Meanwhile, the CBI has also sent a judicial request to the US, seeking fresh information on the Bofors scandal from private investigators. The agency had earlier approached the Supreme Court in 2018, after a 13-year gap, to challenge the HC verdict, but Agarwal noted that no substantial hearing has taken place since then.
The A B Bofors company, commonly known as Bofors, signed a Rs 1400 crore agreement with the Indian government in 1986 to supply 400 units of 155 mm Howitzer guns to the Indian Army. Later, it was revealed that the company had paid a total bribe of Rs 64 crores to senior Indian politicians and defense officers to secure the deal.
The application, filed by advocate Agrawal, said that the apex court had on November 2, 2018, dismissed the CBI's plea against the Delhi high court verdict and said the probe agency can raise all these grounds in the appeal filed by him against the same judgment.
It is to be noted that Indian and Italian businessmen S P Hinduja, Ottavio Quattrocchi and Win Chaddha -- all Bofors pay-off accused -- had already died.
In 1990, the CBI filed an FIR (First Information Report) against Martin Ardbo, then president of AB Bofors, alleged middleman Win Chadda, and the Hinduja brothers for offences including criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery under the IPC, and other sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The CBI claimed that certain public servants and private persons in India and abroad had allegedly entered into a criminal conspiracy between 1982 and 1987, in pursuance of which the offences of bribery, corruption, cheating and forgery were committed.
The CBI, after the completion of the investigation, filed a supplementary charge sheet against the Hinduja brothers on October 9, 2000.
But the Delhi High Court in its 2005 verdict quashed all the charges, including those against the businessmen, three Hinduja brothers, SP Hinduja, G P Hinduja and P P Hinduja and the Bofors company after noting that the probe agency miserably failed to make out a case against them in the case.
Additionally, on March 4, 2011, a special CBI court in Delhi discharged Quattrocchi from the case, stating that the country could not afford to spend more hard-earned money on his extradition, which had already cost Rs 250 crore.