By IANS
New Delhi : After the Indo-US nuclear deal, the Left and the NDA launched another pincer attack on the government Monday when they alleged in parliament that “deliberate inaction” had led to Bofors payoff accused Ottavio Quattrocchi being released from Argentina.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led opposition, sans the Trinamool Congress, walked out of the Lok Sabha on the issue. And although the Left did not walk out, both Communist Party of India-Marxist MP Suresh Kurup and Communist Party of India (CPI) leader Gurudas Dasgupta asked the government to come clean on the issue.
“It is shame on our government (that the Italian businessman walked to freedom). It shows that the government had been hand in glove with the person who had cheated our country,” Kurup said.
“Why did not the government appeal for extradition? What steps you have taken to get him arrested?” he asked.
Quattrocchi, 69, left Buenos Aires for Milan Aug 15 — five days after New Delhi reportedly withdrew its appeal against an Argentine court’s rejection of its extradition petition.
Raising the issue in the zero hour, BJP deputy leader V.K. Malhotra alleged that the prime minister was “in the dock” for failure of the government to pursue the case against Quattrocchi in Argentina’s Supreme Court.
Biju Janata Dal’s Bhratruhari Mahtab alleged that Argentine lawyers had been asked to withdraw India’s appeal at the court in that country.
“India has lost its case because we did not issue fresh warrants against him,” Mahtab said. He asked whether the government was “serious enough” to pursue the case against Quattrocchi and if the Interpol red-corner notice was still valid.
Janata Dal-United’s Prabhunath Singh and Samajwadi Party’s Mohan Singh also alleged that the Italian businessman had been let off thanks to his connection “in high offices” in India.
While the ‘Q’ issue raised a storm in parliament, the Supreme Court also Monday asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to file within four weeks the Argentine court’s order rejecting India’s plea to extradite Quattrocchi.
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. He maintains that the Indian authorities have wrongly framed him.