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CBI files chargesheet against Hindujas

The Central Bureau of Investigation filed a 11-page supplementary chargesheet against the three Hinduja brothers in the court of Additional District and Sessions Judge Ajit Bharihoke on Monday afternoon, 10 months after brought the last set of Bofors papers to India.

"We have filed charges against the Hinduja brothers -- Gopichand, Srichand and Prakash," a CBI officer told rediff.com after the court accepted the agency's application and announced that it would take up the matter on November 20.

Special public prosecutor N Natarajan said the charges against the Hinduja brothers had been filed under Section 120B (criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating) and 51D (trying to bribe a public servant) of the Indian Penal Code. "We have substantial evidence against the accused, otherwise we would not have come before the court," he said.

The Hindujas have been accused of taking 81 million kroners [or $31million] as commission in the Bofors gun deal. "Though aware that there would be no commission in the Bofors gun deal, the accused took commissions and put the amounts into their accounts. This was revealed by various documents submitted to the court," Natarajan explained.

He said that the agency had not gone into whether the accused withdrew the money from their accounts, as it is not possible to go into every detail, as the matter was being investigated in another country.

The court will hear arguments on the framing of charges against the Hinduja brothers at its next hearing on November 20.

When told that the Hindujas have claimed that the money was received in other arms deals and was not a commission in the Bofors gun deal, Natarajan said, "Let them prove it before the court of law."

The judge also extended the period of the non-bailable warrants issued against Ottavio Quattrocchi, an Italian businessmen close to Rajiv Gandhi, who is now in Malaysia. He gave the CBI a month to find out the name of a responsible person in Bofors who would represent it before the court.

Earlier, Bharihoke dismissed two applications moved by Win Chadha's advocate, seeking an undertaking from the investigating agency on the production of statements of some employees of Savinska, against the accused.

When Bharihoke asked if the agency would give an undertaking to produce the documents subject to their relevance, Natarajan said they would. He, however, submitted that the two witnesses named by the advocate for accused Gopal Subramanium were never asked to give their statements and hence they could not produce 'non-existent documents'.

Hearing another petition from Chadha on the supply of some documents seized by the agency during a search, as they had nothing to do with the Bofors case, the judge asked the CBI counsel if they had any objection. The CBI agreed to give certified photocopies of some documents but refused to release a laptop of Harsh Chadha seized during the raids conducted on the premises of Savinska.

"I cannot tell them to release the laptop as it may have some information and cannot be opened without a password. You people in the media would know it better," the judge told newsmen.

Former defence secretary S K Bhatnagar was the only accused present during the hearing, in the morning when the case was deferred till the afternoon. In the supplementary chargesheet, the CBI has cited eight more witnesses, bringing the number of witnesses in the Bofors case to 91.

The list of supporting documents also goes up to 232, with the filing of 15 additional documents along with the chargesheet of the Hinduja brothers.

Natarajan said that the Hinduja brothers could not be accused of obstruction of justice in trying to block the papers relating to the Bofors gun deal where their names figured prominently. "But the court may consider that they did not co-operate with the investigating agency," he said.

A senior agency official admitted that they had faced hurdles in bringing the documents to India. "We were not even considered party to the proceedings in the Swiss court. Gradually, things started falling in line and one after another, judgements came in our favour, leading to the release of documents to the agency. This helped us file charges against Chadha, Quattarochi, Bhatnagar and now the Hinduja brothers. That is besides the chairman of Bofors Martin Adbro and A B Bofors itself. Bringing the documents was not easy," he said.

The Bofors payoffs scandal

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