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Bofors conspired with bureaucrats to clinch the deal: CBI

"Bofors managed the deal as there was a conspiracy involving bureaucrats, politicians and agents of the firm," CBI counsel U S Prasad told Special Judge Prem Kumar.

The CBI said the agents helped Bofors to clinch the deal through their local contacts in the army, the bureaucracy and political circles, including the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi's family.

The agency said that the involvement of middlemen in the deal is proved by the 1987 Swedish National Audit Bureau report, which confirmed that Bofors had paid commission to its agents in India. The SNAB report, however, withheld the recipients' names, the agency added.

The CBI said after the SNAB report, the then minister of state for defence Arjun Singh had asked the government to pursue the matter to its logical conclusion and had recommended that Sweden and Bofors be informed that unless they gave complete information regarding any payoffs that existed in the deal, there would be no alternative but to cancel the contract.

On this matter the minister and the chief of defence staff were of the opinion that if the contract was cancelled the country's security would not be affected as substitute deals with France and other countries could always be made.

The agency said that investigations revealed that after the Bofors report, the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi had conversed with his Swedish counterpart Ingvar Carlsson and told him that there was no need for further investigation by Stockholm. This was contrary to what his minister had initially requested, the agency claimed.

CBI said the conspiracy angle in the deal was strengthened as the then defence secretary S K Bhatanagar's final report on Singh's recommendation to the government did not carry any reference about the affect on national security if the contract was cancelled.

The agency said that the investigations revealed that a crucial sentence involving a note by the chief of defence staff was deleted from Bhatnagar's final draft reply.

The counsel submitted that though the report from Bofors had claimed that there was no involvement of middlemen in the deal, the then Indian ambassador to Sweden B M Oza had asked the government not to make any judgments on the basis of that report.

The CBI in the chargesheet has alleged that Quattrocchi, Chadha and Hinduja brothers - Srichand, Gopichand and Prakashchand -- had played the role of middlemen in the Rs 1473-crore deal.

PTI

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