The Hindu : Setbacks for the CBI

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 17, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

Setbacks for the CBI

THESE ARE BAD times for the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Its hopes of getting Anees Ibrahim, one of the country's most wanted criminals, have been dashed after he was apparently let off following his arrest in Dubai, ostensibly for lack of evidence. Its prospects of having Ottavio Quattrocchi extradited from Malaysia appear pretty bleak with the High Court in Kuala Lumpur squarely rejecting the CBI's plea for a review of the recent decision taken by a lower court. And finally, a cloud of uncertainty continues to hang over the fate of its plea vis-a-vis Abu Salem, whose deportation from Portugal has been tied up in such legal complexities that it cannot be taken for granted any longer. These are enormous setbacks for the investigating agency as they have a direct bearing on the fate of what are arguably two of its most important cases — the Mumbai bomb blasts (in which Anees Ibrahim and Abu Salem are key accused) and Bofors (in which Mr. Quattrocchi is accused of having played a central role).

The circumstances being very different, the reasons for the CBI's lack of success with respect to the three accused are obviously varied. Nevertheless, what they underline is the criticality of ensuring that the case for requesting that an accused person be sent back for trial must be as irrefutable or watertight as possible. In Anees' case, the CBI, which rushed documents pertaining to the cases against him, appears to have made no impact on persuading the authorities about the importance of detaining him. Some reports suggest that UAE officials were unimpressed with the evidence furnished by the CBI, which did not have fingerprints of the accused (a technical but nevertheless important requirement to conclusively establish identity in extradition cases). Anees' release on bail, and his subsequent reported passage to Pakistan, was facilitated by the fact that he was not arrested in Dubai for murder (as some had presumed) but for his involvement in an extortion case.

Even so, India has reason to be both perplexed and disturbed by the extraordinary contrast in the attitude of the UAE officials, who only recently went out of the way to cooperate in the deportation of other mafia dons such as Aftab Ansari, Muthappa Rai and Raju Anadkot. Perhaps not surprisingly, Anees' release has been coupled with speculation about the influence that his powerful elder brother, Dawood Ibrahim, exercises in the Emirates. This is the fourth time in recent years that Anees has been arrested by the Dubai police and then let off. Meanwhile, the task of getting Abu Salem, who is wanted in a few dozen cases of murder, extortion and forgery in this country, is proving to be much more difficult than presumed earlier. Having formally promised, in deference to European Union laws and sensitivities, that he will not receive the death penalty if found guilty, India is engaged in making both legal and diplomatic moves to secure his deportation.

In some ways though, it is the failure to secure Mr. Quattrocchi's extradition that will hurt the most. Although the CBI has challenged the Kuala Lumpur High Court's decision in the Malaysian Supreme Court, securing a favourable verdict will be an uphill task and may hinge on demonstrating that the lower court — which had described the extradition requisition papers as insufficient, vague and ambiguous — had erred because of a misunderstanding about Indian legal procedure. The failure to secure Mr. Quattrocchi's extradition has enormous implications for the Bofors case, which has already suffered from the sheer passage of time. Two of the accused, the former Defence Secretary, S. K. Bhatnagar, and Win Chaddha, are dead; so is Rajiv Gandhi, who was not even examined by the CBI. With the former head of Bofors, Martin Ardbo, having successfully evaded all extradition attempts, the failure to get Mr. Quattrocchi too would have a significant bearing on the CBI's attempt to establish the true nature of the conspiracy that attended the howitzer deal.

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