01-22-2006, 10:18 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->CBI may sing like a canaryÂ
Pioneer.com
Navin Upadhyay/ New Delhi
SC to hear PIL on defreezing Q accounts tomorrow ---- The Central Bureau of Investigation's desperate attempt to bail out the Government in the raging controversy over unlocking of Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi's bank accounts in London may come a cropper in Supreme Court when the case comes up for hearing on Monday. Â
The CBI does not have documents to establish that additional solicitor general B Dutta was asked to make any request to the CPS to defreeze Mr Q's accounts. The agency will also find it difficult to establish that Mr Dutta was carrying the agency's brief to London in his meeting with officials of the Crown Prosecution Service.
Harried CBI officials are burning the midnight oil to prepare a response to the Supreme Court notice on a PIL filed by advocate Ajay Agarwal challenging the UPA Government's steps to unlock Mr Q's frozen accounts. Last week, the court admitted the PIL and directed the Government to initiate a move to keep Mr Q's accounts in freeze. The apex court's intervention prodded CBI to hold a Press conference and claim it had sent Mr Dutta to London to answer certain queries raised by the CPS in connection with keeping tabs on Mr Q's accounts.
The PIL asks, under whose instruction Dutta visited London on December 22 to submit that the CBI had found no evidence to link the money in two of Mr Q's accounts - Euro 3 million and $1 million with the Bofors payoff case. The PIL also sought direction for the Government to produce the letter/authority given to Britain's Crown Prosecution Service to defreeze the accounts.
Sources in CBI said, Mr Dutta's brief was only to convey the implications of various judgments of Delhi High Court in connection with acquittals of Hinduja brothers. However, they are baffled by the written request made by Mr Dutta to the CPS to defreeze Mr Q's accounts.
"This was not part of our brief," said a CBI official. "We will have no option but to admit it before the court," he added.
<b>The UPA Government's attempt to make the CBI a scapegoat was exposed by the CPS' e-mail of December 23 where it specifically mentions that Mr Dutta had handed over written request from the Government of India and Law Ministry to defreeze Mr Q's accounts.</b>
<b>"We can't do anything at this stage. The court is bound to ask for relevant papers to support that we had asked Mr Dutta to make the request to unlock the accounts. Both the agency and the Government could end up with egg on their faces," a senior CBI official said.</b>
The CBI is worried about how it will explain to SC its decision to bypass the trial court in bailing out Mr Q. "It amounts to closing a case. The SC could take a serious view of it," a source said.
Sources also said that new CBI director Vijay Shanker is upset over the way the agency has been dragged into the controversy over a step initiated by his predecessor.
They say, Mr Shanker is not willing to crawl when he has been asked to bend. And that could add to UPA's discomfiture in coming days.
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Pioneer.com
Navin Upadhyay/ New Delhi
SC to hear PIL on defreezing Q accounts tomorrow ---- The Central Bureau of Investigation's desperate attempt to bail out the Government in the raging controversy over unlocking of Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi's bank accounts in London may come a cropper in Supreme Court when the case comes up for hearing on Monday. Â
The CBI does not have documents to establish that additional solicitor general B Dutta was asked to make any request to the CPS to defreeze Mr Q's accounts. The agency will also find it difficult to establish that Mr Dutta was carrying the agency's brief to London in his meeting with officials of the Crown Prosecution Service.
Harried CBI officials are burning the midnight oil to prepare a response to the Supreme Court notice on a PIL filed by advocate Ajay Agarwal challenging the UPA Government's steps to unlock Mr Q's frozen accounts. Last week, the court admitted the PIL and directed the Government to initiate a move to keep Mr Q's accounts in freeze. The apex court's intervention prodded CBI to hold a Press conference and claim it had sent Mr Dutta to London to answer certain queries raised by the CPS in connection with keeping tabs on Mr Q's accounts.
The PIL asks, under whose instruction Dutta visited London on December 22 to submit that the CBI had found no evidence to link the money in two of Mr Q's accounts - Euro 3 million and $1 million with the Bofors payoff case. The PIL also sought direction for the Government to produce the letter/authority given to Britain's Crown Prosecution Service to defreeze the accounts.
Sources in CBI said, Mr Dutta's brief was only to convey the implications of various judgments of Delhi High Court in connection with acquittals of Hinduja brothers. However, they are baffled by the written request made by Mr Dutta to the CPS to defreeze Mr Q's accounts.
"This was not part of our brief," said a CBI official. "We will have no option but to admit it before the court," he added.
<b>The UPA Government's attempt to make the CBI a scapegoat was exposed by the CPS' e-mail of December 23 where it specifically mentions that Mr Dutta had handed over written request from the Government of India and Law Ministry to defreeze Mr Q's accounts.</b>
<b>"We can't do anything at this stage. The court is bound to ask for relevant papers to support that we had asked Mr Dutta to make the request to unlock the accounts. Both the agency and the Government could end up with egg on their faces," a senior CBI official said.</b>
The CBI is worried about how it will explain to SC its decision to bypass the trial court in bailing out Mr Q. "It amounts to closing a case. The SC could take a serious view of it," a source said.
Sources also said that new CBI director Vijay Shanker is upset over the way the agency has been dragged into the controversy over a step initiated by his predecessor.
They say, Mr Shanker is not willing to crawl when he has been asked to bend. And that could add to UPA's discomfiture in coming days.
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