UPA as QUATTROCCHI's DEFENCE COUNSEL?

UPA government as Quattrochi’s defence counsel

By Amba Charan Vashishth

It was never in doubt that Congress and Bofors were real cousins, inseparable. Ottavio Quattrocchi, the main accused in the Bofors pay-off scandal had never concealed his relations with the Gandhis. An India Today report (http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/125661/india/%E2%80%98quattrocchi-had-free-access-to-gandhis%E2%80%99.html?complete=1) states that Ottavio Quattrocchi's personal driver Sasi Dharan in his deposition talks about multiple meetings between Quattrocchi and the Gandhis. These meetings continued right up to May 1993, till just before Ottavio Quattrocchi fled India for good. In his testimony before the CBI, Sasi gave details of the frequent meetings between the Gandhis and the Quattrocchis.

It is important to note that the meetings between Ottavio Quattrochi and Mrs. Sonia Gandhi continued even after Rajiv Gandhi’s death in 1991. Quattrocchi came to 10 Janpath 21 times after May 1991, he adds.

But when Quattrochi was allowed to slip out of the country during a Congress government in power at the Centre, the Congress and Mrs. Sonia Gandhi claimed that they had no role to play.

During the UPA-I under the leadership of Dr. Manmohan Singh not a leaf could rattle without the implied nod of the Congress supremo Mrs. Sonia Gandhi. During this period the then Law Minister H. R. Bharadwaj made the Additional Solicitor General of India especially fly to London to get the Quattrochi bank accounts defreezed at the cost of the people. This was done in spite of the fact that a red corner notice against Quattrochi issued at the behest of the Government of India was still there at that time.

When the eyebrows were raised, the Congress once again said that it had nothing to do with the case. Yet, everybody then knew that the Law Minister Bharadwaj (later rewarded with the office of a governor) was no naïve as not to distinguish between what would send a smile on the face of the madam.

But the gin of Bofors deal, now long considered dead, appeared once again to haunt the Congress and the Congress-led Manmohan government when the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) named Italian middleman Ottavio Quattrocchi as one of the beneficiaries of the kickbacks. An ITAT order dated December 31, 2010, said “payments were made illegally as the government of India’s policy did not allow middleman in defence deals”. Quattrocchi and Win Chadha are accused of receiving `41 crore in illegal kickbacks in the Bofors gun purchase scandal of the mid-1980s. “Bofors admittedly paid the amounts to AE Services, Ottavio Quattrocchi and other entities. It’s a liability for withholding tax is built in. Ottavio Quattrocchi was living in India for a considerable time. This issue about his tax residence status should have been verified,” the order said.

So far maintaining that it had nothing to do with the Quattrochi case, this time Congress, after initially refusing to comment for about a week, had to come out seeking to pick holes in the ITAT order, wondering as to how the name of Ottavio Quattrochi figures in it. But why should the party wonder and worry when it had nothing to do with Quattrochi?

"We all know that in IT proceedings, you cannot deal with third parties. This was a case about assessment of income of Win Chaddha. In the 98-page order, Quattrochi's name comes on the 94th page. Technical question arises as to how his name came," party spokesman Abhishek Singhvi told reporters. He alleged that whenever an individual's name comes up in the Bofors case, it is sought to be "mischievously and misleadingly and deliberately" linked to the Congress party and Rajiv Gandhi. "That is the most unfortunate part".

Congress embarrassment is understandable because of the close family links between the Quattrochis and Gandhis which have never been a secret. Congress Party should know that names of both Win Chaddha and Quattrochi had appeared as the two beneficiaries of the Bofors loot. Therefore, both the names are like Siamese twins, inseparable.

But, what is more surprising is the report in the media (Times of India, February 15) that the government “is readying to appeal the Delhi high court to erase an unexpected tribunal order stricturing the Income Tax department for failing to proceed against Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi for non-payment of tax on the kickback money he received from the Bofors gun deal”.

The department got a favourable order from the ITAT on December 31 last year against former Bofors agent Win Chaddha's son, Hersh Chaddha, asking him to pay up tax dues on the commission from the gun deal with interest, totalling nearly Rs 50 crore. But it turned bitter for the Manmohan government the moment Quattrochi’s name surfaced.

It will turn out to be the rarest of the rare cases when the Government will go in for an appeal against the order in its own favour because the Income Tax Department and the Manmohan government are not two different entities. It is only the aggrieved party which goes in appeal against the judgement of the court. While Quattrochi can be the aggrieved party, how can the UPA government or the Congress?

After acting as the Quattrochi counsels to get his two freezed London bank accounts defreezed, the Congress-led Manmohan government will once again be acting as Quattrochi counsel at the expense of the aam aadmi to get his name deleted from the ITAT order which, in effect will mean pleading to seek loss of revenue to the government and which appeal, in the normal course, should have been filed by Quattrochi himself.

That will only confirm the suspicions in the minds of the people of India, nothing else.