Bofors papers will arrive in India on Monday

CBI to seek Swedish, Swiss assistance to decipher Bofors papers

George Iype in New Delhi

The Central Bureau of Investigation will submit the Bofors papers before the court of Special Judge Ajit Bharihoke on Monday. The much-awaited bank documents relating to the Bofors kickbacks were handed over to Indian government officials in the Swiss capital, Berne, on Tuesday.

The Delhi police said the federal home ministry has asked it to throw a security cordon around CBI Director Joginder Singh and three other officials when they arrive with the sealed box containing the Bofors papers at the capital's international airport.

The CBI team is scheduled to arrive in New Delhi on Friday, January 24. "We have instructed the airport police to throw a security cover for the government team which is bringing the Bofors papers to India," Additional Police Commissioner Ranjit Narayan told Rediff On The NeT.

After the team's arrival, CBI sources said Singh and Co will head towards the agency's headquarters at Lodi Road and deposit the documents in the high-security underground cell.

However, the CBI authorities will not break the box's seal before the documents are presented to Judge Bharihoke on January 27, the first working day after Singh's arrival. It was this special court which in August 1990 sent the letters rogatory to the Swiss authorities seeking the documents.

The CBI has not yet decided whether to make public the names of the middlemen who benefitted from the arms contract, involving the purchase of 410 field howitzer guns from the Swedish-based company, A B Bofors.

Once the court grants the agency permission to open the documents, a senior CBI official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, "we will initiate the process of trying to understand them."

"At least a dozen CBI officers will study the papers," he told Rediff On The NeT.

The CBI, he added, will in all probability seek the assistance of Swedish and Swiss officials to analyse the documents. "Left to ourselves," he said, we might take months to make any meaning of the papers."

Political circles are abuzz with speculation how the long-awaited Bofors papers will embarrass the Congress party which supports the United Front government headed by Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda.

UF partners foresee the Congress pressurising the prime minister to play down the issue, as the Bofors kickbacks are alleged to involve then Congress prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Though the allegations have never been proved, Congress party managers fear the issue will hurt Gandhi's widow Sonia Gandhi if the papers reveal that Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi was among the beneficiaries.

Quattrocchi was a close friend of Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi family.

"We are not worried about the Bofors papers. It is up to the government whether to keep it a secret or place it before Parliament, Congress Working Committee member Ghulam Nabi Azad told Rediff On The NeT. His party, Azad claimed, will not in any manner pressurise the Deve Gowda government over the Bofors papers.