By IANS,
New Delhi: Leading lawyer and anti-corruption activist Prashant Bhushan said Friday that the closure of the Bofors kickbacks case was “totally wrong” as there was “clear evidence” of bribes being paid in the deal for Swedish artillery guns for the Indian Army.
“It is totally wrong. There was clear evidence against (Italian businessman) Ottavio Quattrochhi (a family friend of then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi) and about the kickbacks paid in the deal,” Bhushan told IANS.
He said the case had made “considerable progress with the accounts in the Swiss banks (being) traced”.
Bhushan said it was a disappointment that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had decided to “scuttle the case despite the hard work done”.
“But today’s decision need not be the final word,” he said. “A public interest litigation can take up the case in higher courts.”
“I hope the investigative agencies and the courts will get to the truth in the Bofors case one day,” he said.
Paving the way for the end of the Rs.640 million Bofors kickbacks case, a Delhi court Friday accepted the CBI’s closure report seeking to drop all charges against Quattrochhi in the over two-decade-old scandal.