SC to hear petition on Bofors scandal tomorrow

New Delhi, Oct 29 (UNI) The Supreme Court will hear a petition tomorrow seeking stay against Delhi High Court's judgement discharging Hinduja brothers in Bofors guns scandal involving kick-backs of Rs 64 crores.

Rajkumar Pandey, on whose petition challenging the High Court order dated March 31 2005, has moved an application seeking interim stay against the High Court order so that trial against three Hinduja brothers namely, P Gopichand Hinduja, Srichanchand Hinduja and Prakash Hinduja may be resumed.

Earlier a bench headed by the Chief Justice Y K Sabharwal had refused to grant any interim leave to another petitioner Ajay Kumar Agarwal. The court has also refused to fix any early date of hearing in the case.

Hinduja brothers, the prime accused in the scandal have already withdrawn Rs 22.5 crores deposited by them as security, after the impugned High Court judgement.

The Italian relative of Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Ottavio Quattorochi has also withdrawn an amount lying in his Swiss Bank account believed to be kick-backs in the Bofors guns deal.

In the present petition M/S A B Bofors has also been made a party.

The case has been going on since 90's when V P Singh came into power after he launched a massive anti-corruption campaign against the then Rajiv Gandhi government.

However, the name of Rajiv Gandhi was cleared by the Delhi High Court in February 2004 holding that there was no personal involvement of the late Prime Minister in the case. Moreover, the media campaign against the Gandhi family also came under heavy fire from Justice J D Kapoor, who is currently the president of Delhi State Consumer Commission.

UNI AKS/SC SSC