Five months on, CBI yet to get translated court order on Q

NEW DELHI: Five months after an Argentine trial court rejected India’s request for extradition of Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi, an accused in the multi-crore Bofors pay-off case, the CBI is yet to procure an authenticated English translated copy of the order.

Additional solicitor general Gopal Subramaniam gave this information to a bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justices R V Raveendran and J M Panchal, which on October 20 had asked the CBI to provide it with an English translation of the order within four weeks.

Though the ASG narrated the difficulty in getting an authentic English translation of the trial court order which is in Spanish, he did not inform the apex court whether in the absence of such an ‘authentic translation’, the Indian government was handicapped in consenting to the Argentine authorities request to pursue the appeal against the trial court order before the Argentine Federal court. Though the Argentine prosecution had statutorily moved the Federal court challenging the trial court order declining Quattrocchi’s extradition in addition to imposing heavy cost on CBI, the appeal could not be maintained as the Indian government refused to accord consent to it. This refusal to grant permission to the Argentine prosecution led to the withdrawal of the appeal from the Federal court. A plea filed by lawyer Ajay Agrawal has questioned why the Centre refused permission to continue with the appeal.

The bench, after hearing Subramaniam, allowed more time to the CBI to file the authentic translation of the Argentine court order and posted the matter for further hearing on January 14. Agrawal had requested the SC to direct the CBI and the Centre to place before it the entire records pertaining to the extradition case against Quattrocchi, "including the ‘opinions’ of officials of CBI as also the law officers who favoured Quattrocchi" in the case in Argentina as well as the one relating to defreezing of bank accounts in London last year.

Appearing for CBI, Subramaniam had told the apex court on August 20 that the agency would be able to provide within four weeks an authentic translation of the El Dorado court order rejecting the extradition request.

Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com