Quattrocchi will be hard to get

New Delhi: Extraditing Ottavio Quattrocchi back to India is going to be one tough task as India and Argentina do not have a bilateral extradition treaty.

However, experts say that it may still be possible for the CBI to question Quattrocchi if Argentina agrees to honour the extradition act.

"The two options available are that either India uses the extradition treaty or there is a reciprocal approval of the extradition act of the two countries," says former foreign secretary Shashank.

The Centre can also rely on the United Nations Convention against Corruption — signed by India in 2005 and Argentina in 2003 — to extradite Quattrocchi, who allegedly got kickbacks from Swedish arms manufacturer Bofors.

Although the UN treaty has never been used by India before, it could turn out to be an additional weapon to go after economic offenders and their assets.

"Depending upon what the nature of the crime is, our legal powers can stretch out beyond national boundaries," says B G Verghese, a columnist.

But the UN treaty has not yet been incorporated into Indian law. What's more, even if India seeks Quattrocchi's extradition under the treaty, it ensures Argentina's legal sovereignty is upheld at all times.

"Quattrocchi has always taken the view that because of the huge uproar against him in India, he won't get a fair trial. The Argentinian courts will have to examine that prospect," says senior advocate Rajiv Dhavan.

And the truth is that even with valid extradition treaties with several countries, India has had little success in questioning or prosecuting absconders.

Experts say that is because cases are thrown out by foreign governments when found to be incompatible with their laws or with bilateral extradition treaties.

There is another option convincing Argentina to deport Quattrocchi in the interest of good relations with India. But many will ask if the Government will be willing to pull out all the stops.

BOFORS & QUATTROCCHI

India's most enduring scam - the Bofors deal - first came to light in 1987 when a Swedish radio broadcast alleged kickbacks in a defence deal for 155-mm howitzers. Incriminating documents surfaced in Sweden and Switzerland.

Then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was accused of receiving kickbacks from Bofors AB for winning a bid to supply India's 155 mm field howitzer.

The scale of corruption was far worse than any India had seen before, and directly led to the defeat of the ruling Indian National Congress party in the November 1989 general elections.

Soon, the name of an Italian middleman, associated with the scandal, started cropping up. The man was Ottavio Quattrocchi.

Quattrocchi was born in 1938, at Mascali, in Italy. In 1964, at the age of 26, he came to India as a junior representative of the Italian conglomerate, the ENI group.

The company initially undertook a number of relatively small assignments for various fertiliser concerns, but 1970s onwards, it acquired a high and controversial profile, thanks to Quattrocchi and his access to the Nehru-Gandhi family.

His first success was in 1977, when he managed to bag two contracts of the Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilisers Company and Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilisers.

By the time he became a controversial figure, he had extracted other contracts worth Rs 8,000 crore from the Indian goverment.

Union ministers and secretaries, not to mention heads of public sector undertakings, were more than willing to dance to his tunes.

Soon, the reversals began. Vishwanath Pratap Singh, the then finance minister, refused to favour the Italian consortium represented by Quattrocchi. But Quattarochi had moved on.

By then, he was also working as representative for various other firms like AE services.

In 1986, AB Bofors appointed him as a negotiator for the sale of 400 odd Bofors Howitzer guns, a deal worth Rs 1,436 crore.

Trouble began when the deal was hit by the kickback scam and Parliamentary Committee investigation found him as being one of the accused.

He escaped from India in 1993 to the United Kingdom. In 1997, CBI finally got the necessary papers from Switzerland, and in 1999, a case was filed against him.

(With Prachee Sinha)

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