A shame they forgot Gandhian values and meddled in guns! There's more money in fodder.

NEW DELHI, May 15: Cabinet Secretary TSR Subramanian has reportedly told Prime Minister I K Gujral that the CBI's proposed charge-sheet in the Bofors case needed a closer look by senior law officers of the Government due to discrepancies and lacunae.

Following this, the government has decided to withhold sanction to the CBI to file chargesheets against those mentioned in the agency's report and instead seek legal opinion.

The Cabinet Secretary discussed the issue briefly with the Prime Minister when they met in Parliament House today, it is learnt.

Since the Attorney-General of India, Ashok Desai, is proceeding on a holiday abroad, the case may have to wait or the services of Solicitor General of India may be sought by the Government.

Highly placed sources say that Rajiv Gandhi has been held guilty of allowing Ottavio Quattrocchi to attend official meetings to discuss the Bofors gun deal during his tenure as Prime Minister in 1985-86 which was ``unprecedented'' in the Government.

Interestingly, Rajiv is accused No. 15 in the draft charge-sheet for a conspiracy to cause loss to the exchequer and on other counts.

Sources in the Cabinet Secretariat disclosed on condition of anonymity that the Government cannot be expected to sign on the dotted line in the sensitive case particularly when the proposed charge-sheet has no clinching evidence and the report is incomplete and half-baked.

The CBI has not received secret bank documents from Switzerland relating to the third account in which nearly Rs 35 crore out of a total kickbacks of Rs 64 had gone.

The CBI also has no evidence of payment of money to any Indian public servant so far from the two accounts given by the Swiss authorities belonging to Quattrocchi and his wife and Win Chadha and his wife. While Quattrocchis received Rs 9 crore, Chadhas got Rs 20 crore.

The CBI had sent Letters Rogatory to several countries to find out the end payments from these accounts. Since Quattrocchis and Chadhas are not public servants, they cannot be held guilty under the Prevention of Corruption Act either of receiving money as bribe or paying it to anybody else to get the contract.

Unless details relating to these accounts come, the charge-sheet in the Bofors case will not stand in the court of law and the CBI's image will suffer a setback as it has suffered in the hawala case.

The Gujral government, meanwhile, is baffled over the near unanimity in both Houses of Parliament on the issue as the BJP, which was in the forefront of the Bofors agitation and always created a rumpus whenever anything about Bofors appeared in newspapers during 1987-89 and 1991-96, joined hands with the Congress.

The tearing hurry of CBI Director Joginder Singh to wash his hands off the case before he demits office as scheduled in October or removed early is understandable.

Before the chargesheet was filed it is learnt that L Revennasiddaiah, former head of the Special Investigation Team on Bofors, had decided to issue summons to V George, former private secretary to late Rajiv Gandhi in the case as he was based at the 7, Race Course residence of the Prime Minister.

Both George and Sonia Gandhi were reportedly to be examined in connection with the evidence against Quattrocchi that he had a free run of Rajiv's residence.How CBI built up case against Rajiv Gandhi

Rajiv Gandhi is accused no. 15 in the draft charge-sheet in the Bofors case. The case against Rajiv is based on the fact that another accused Ottavio Quattrocchi was present at official meetings held to discuss the deal. This has been described as ``unprecedented'''. Trips made by the two families together including holidays within the country and the fact that Quattrocchi's family was allowed in to the Prime Minister's residence without the mandatory security check forms part of the evidence presented.

SPG men also told the CBI about visits made by Quattrocchi to the PM's house.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.