Court defers judgement on Bofors

A local court on Monday deferred the pronouncement of judgement on Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi till March 4 in regard to the two-decade-old Bofors payoff case.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Vinod Yadav was scheduled to announce judgement on a Central Bureau of Investigation’s appeal seeking withdrawal of the case against the 70-year-old Italian businessman Quattrocchi, who could not be made to appear to face any court of law in India.

The CBI had been telling the court since Oct 2009 to withdraw the case against Quattrocchi since it failed to get him extradited first from Malayasia in 2003 and then from Argentina in 2007.

Quattrocchi had been accused of receiving a payoff for brokering the Bofors gun deal in 1986.

The continuance of prosecution against Quattrocchi will be unjustified. It is considered expedient in the interest of justice that the proceedings against him should not be continued and be withdrawn, CBI had said in the application seeking withdrawal of the case.

Advocate Ajay Agrawal, who has been moving the case in the Supreme Court and had approached the trial court against CBI’s move to seek a closure of the case, said the government was trying to close the case despite having sufficient evidence against the foreigner.