By IANS
New Delhi : The Supreme Court Monday asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to file within four weeks the Argentine court’s order rejecting India’s plea to extradite Ottavio Quattrocchi, accused in the Bofors payoff scandal.
A three-judge bench, led by Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and comprising C.K. Thakkar and R.V. Ravindran, was responding to a petition by advocate Ajay Aggarwal seeking an explanation of the circumstances in which the Italian businessman was allowed to leave Argentina.
Quattrocchi, 69, left Buenos Aires for Milan Aug 15, five days after India reportedly withdrew its appeal against an Argentine court’s rejection of its extradition petition.
India had earlier appealed in the Argentine Supreme Court against the June 8 decision of a court in Iguazu in Argentina that had rejected the CBI application to extradite Quattrocchi.
Quattrocchi was allowed to leave Argentina after fighting a six-month legal battle.
The CBI reportedly failed to produce the arrest warrant issued against him by a Delhi court in 1997. On the basis of this warrant, Quattrocchi had been detained at Iguazu airport Feb 6.
CBI alleges that Quattrocchi took $7 million in bribes as a middleman in the $1.2 billion purchase of artillery from Swedish arms maker Bofors AB for the Indian Army in the mid-1980s.
However, he maintains that the Indian authorities have wrongly framed him.