CBI seeks two months for report on Quattrocchi

The CBI on Thursday filed in court its status report with respect to the revoking of the red corner notice against Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi in the Bofors gun payoff case and sought two months to consider its options.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Kaveri Baweja fixed the next date of hearing on September 8.

Filing the report in her court, CBI counsel Additional Solicitor General P.P. Malhotra contended that attempts to extradite Quattrocchi from Argentina have failed because of various reasons and it did not seem possible in the near future.

However, Malhotra assured the court that the CBI was keeping all options open and sought two months time to consider them.

The CBI also informed the court that the red corner notice was revoked by the agency on Nov 25, 2008.

The case against Quattrocchi, known to be close to the family of late Rajiv Gandhi, who was prime minister in 1987 when the bribery scandal broke, has taken tortuous twists and turns after he was named in a CBI chargesheet as the conduit for the Bofors bribe in 1999.

Quattrocchi has managed to evade interrogation.

The nearest the CBI came to him was in February 2007 when Quattrocchi was detained in Argentina on the basis of an Interpol warrant.

But the CBI took time in translating documents that were to be presented in the designated court there and also put up a half-hearted effort towards his extradition. It finally lost the case for his extradition four months later.