Officials in the Central Bureau of Investigation , have defended the agency by asserting that the Indian law ministry had authorised the withdrawal of the extradition appeal.
NEW DELHI: Officials in the Central Bureau of Investigation, which has been derided for its failure to have Argentina extradite Ottavio Quattrocchi, have defended the agency by asserting that the Indian law ministry had authorised the withdrawal of the extradition appeal.
The officials, who declined to be named, said that after India lost the extradition appeal in a lower Argentine court, the case was automatically transferred to the supreme court and was scheduled to be heard on September 7.
The officials said that directorate of prosecution, a law ministry body, asked the public prosecutor to withdraw the appeal much before that deadline.
But a former director of the CBI, DR Karthikeyan said that Quattrocchi got away because of the CBI’s inefficiency and that the agency should determine if the case was mishandled on purpose.
Karthikeyan was part of the Bofors case when the investigations had begun. “Same mistakes cannot happen twice in a similar extradition case.”
On Wednesday, Quattrocchi was allowed to leave Argentina after the CBI failed to challenge a lower court’s order rejecting India’s request to extradite him. In 2003, Quattrocchi was arrested in Malaysia but managed to get away after winning court cases.
“There is some serious problem with the agency,” Karthikeyan said. “He is a wanted criminal in the country. How can the CBI let the man walk free twice?” Karthikeyan said that the agency had allowed Quattrocchi’s bank accounts in the UK to be de-frozen, which suggested that something was “seriously wrong” with the agency. “It is time that the agency came out clean and answered the questions raised by the people,” Karthikeyan said.
“It is the agency’s duty to reveal the names of the officers who failed to bring the man back to India,” said Karthikeyan. He said citizens have the right to know the identity of the officials. He said the agency was currently engaging in blame game to distract attention from its lapses.
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