NEW DELHI, May 13: Former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi has been named as the prime accused in the proposed chargesheet relating to the Rs 1,437-crore Bofors gun deal clinched in March 1986.

Highly placed sources in the Cabinet Secretariat said today that CBI Director Joginder Singh has sent the ``top secret'' Bofors chargesheet for the Government's formal clearance.

Although Rajiv Gandhi cannot be prosecuted as he was assassinated in May 1991, the CBI's proposed chargesheet holds him guilty of hatching a conspiracy to cause willful loss to the state exchequer and allowing middlemen (Quattrocchi, Win Chadha and unknown persons) to make money.

However, the CBI's 300-page report (proposed chargesheet) admits its failure to prove that Rajiv Gandhi himself benefited financially in the gun deal.

Madhav Sinh Solanki, former Union Minister, Gopi Arora, former Special Secretary to the then Prime Minister, former Defence Secretary S K Bhatnagar, Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi and his wife Maria, Win Chadha, his late wife Kanta and son Harsh Chadha are among the other accused.

The CBI has excluded former Army Chief Gen K Sundarji's name as an accused, after considerable deliberation. One of the considerations that weighed in favour of Sundarji was his willingness to cooperate with the CBI and depose against Rajiv Gandhi and others.

The CBI's report on Sundarji says that no mala fide case could be established against him for recommending the Swedish Bofors gun instead of the French Sofma gun. Sundarji, before becoming the Army chief had insisted for buying the Sofma on six occasions.

The two sets of secret bank documents received from the Swiss authorities last year by Joginder Singh in Berne failed to establish that money went to any of the Indian public servants who decided to purchase the Bofors gun.

The two sets of bank documents revealed that Quattrocchis received Rs 9 crore in the gun deal while the Chadhas got Rs 20 crore approximately. The documents relating to the third secret account is yet to be received from the Swiss authorities.

Late Rajiv Gandhi's cousin and former Union Minister Arun Nehru, Ram Chandra Rath, a Congress candidate from Asaka (Orissa) and others have also been named as prosecution witnesses. They have told the investigators the influence Quattrocchi yielded during the regime of the Gandhis. Arun Nehru was extensively grilled by the CBI during which he extensively spoke against the Gandhis.

In fact, it was L Revenasiddiah, who as head of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) on Bofors got photographs and related evidence to establish Quattrocchi's access with the Gandhi family. Revenasiddiah who was a trusted lieutenant of former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda sought his transfer to Bangalore before the change of guard at the Centre.

It was in the last week of April that Joginder Singh sent a request to the Cabinet Secretariat asking the Government to de-classify 15 ``top secret'' files in the Prime Minister's Office and 20-odd files in the Defence Ministry to enable the agency to use the same as evidence in the case.

These files were made available to the CBI to help the agency in probing the deal. These cannot be used as evidence in courts and for chargesheeting purposes without the same being de-classified.

However, the agency dispatched the proposed chargesheets without waiting for the Government's nod on de-classification of these files. Sources say that Joginder Singh is in a tearing hurry to complete probe into all important pending cases.

In the Bofors case, documents relating to the third secret Swiss bank account are yet to come. The CBI is yet to receive replies from countries where Letters Rogatory were sent in this regard.

Sources say that the CBI investigators failed to establish any motive on the part of Rajiv Gandhi to award the contract to the Swedish gun manufacturer. Merely the fact that the money went to Quattrocchi and Win Chadha cannot be used as evidence against Rajiv Gandhi because it was K Sundarji who opted for Bofors instead of Sofma.

The Rajiv Gandhi regime cleared the gun deal within 48 hours after receiving Sundarji's recommendation for Bofors while Madhav Sinh Solanki, former External Affairs Minister, interfered in the CBI's investigation by handing over a letter to the Swiss authorities to scuttle Bofors probe.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.