NEW DELHI: India and Switzerland are heading for a serious and embarrassing diplomatic situation over the thorny Bofors issue. This follows the circulation of a five page memo supposed to have emanated from Indian Foreign Minister Madhav Sigh Solanki requesting his Swiss counterpart Rene Folber t0 go slow on the Boors investigation While Somki has denied having made such a request the Swiss foreign office has forwarded the memo to the Swiss Ministry of Justice for further action.

According to Swiss government sources the memo was personally handed over by Solanki to Feber when they met for 45 minutes at Davos on Feb.11, 992. The Swiss investigators attach great significance to the unscheduled arrival of Solanki to attend the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum on January 29 barely two days before the Bofors case Judgment was to be delivered in a Geneva court.

On January 31 the court adjourned the hearing following a request from the defendants that they were not ready with all the documents. In the next three days the Swiss prosecutor’s office received a note from his foreign office attaching the request of the Indian Foreign Minister. While detailing the current status of the Bofors case in India the memo contains a vital sentence that until final decisions taken by the Indian courts on that (Win Chandhas petition in Delhi’s high court) no further step should be taken in Switzerland.”

According to this memo doing the rounds of Geneva and New Delhi including the office of those who are defending the accused the Indian Government believes that there is no urgency in this case and the matter can be held in suspension.

People within the official investigative process were 50 flabbergasted with this memorandum that they wrote to Indian officials last week seeking an explanation. CBIs R.P Shamabas sent a note con March 25 advising the Swiss investigative authorities to go ahead with the investigations (the proceedings in the Indian High Court notwithstanding) but the mystery of the note the way it was lipped into the process and the damage it has done to the case demurs.

Solanki met Felber here on Feb.1 (official records show that the meeting was scheduled between 1660 and 1715) when he was visiting Davos to attend the World Economic Forum meet. A spokesman for the Swiss Foreign Ministry confirmed the Felber Solanki meeting as well as what he called “an exchange of memos” but added that all correspondence on the Bofors matter was routinely passed on to the justice and police ministry handling the dossier. While he did not want to comment 6m this matter or on whether the Indian memorandum was signed or not he did add that it was not a all impossible to find unsigned notes in the correspondence between the governments.

In any case Swiss officials investigating the matter took the note and its message seriously enough to ask for an explanation from India.

Once the mischievous memo surfaced in the official Geneva circles the alarm bells rang in New Delhi and the CBI which was dragging its feet in the last few months sprung into action and dispatched a prompt note to the Swiss authorities advising them that they should pursue the investigation. (The CBI it is believed said it had no knowledge of the memorandum).

“All I can say at the moment is that I have received a message from the CBI now asking me to ignore the message and continue with the case” said Dr. Pierre Schmid Chief International Assistant in Criminal matters Federal Justice and Police Office.

It may be recalled that last week Dr. Schmid told the Indian Express that he had received a message from a superior authority informing him that the Indian Government did not expect quick results in the case While he did not comment on the source of that information Dr.Schmid did add that he had to contact the Federal Foreign Office to clarify the legal aspects of the message.

It-was also learnt that Indi counsel in Switzerland Marc Bonnat who may have had some access to the memorandum had written to the CBI demanding an explanation.

While Dr.Schmids office can be expected to tell the Geneva court that the Indian request for assistance should be admitted it is impossible to predict whether and how the Indian Foreign Ministers note will surface in the court especially since it is believed that some of the appellant’s lawyers have gained access to it.

Over 43 payments spread over a few years were made by Bofors to a series of coded accounts in banks in Geneva to clinch the field howitzer gun deal. Among them are the Lotus Tulip Mont-Blano payments linked to the Hindujas through the Pitco- Moresco Moiceau track as well as several Swenka payments linked to former Bofors agent in India Win Chadda. Money from A.E. Services which received money in a Zurich bank was also transferred to an account named Cobar Investments in Geneva court documents also show that S.P. Hindyja and Jubilee Finance Incorporated are among the appellants at the Geneva cantonal court.

The Hindujas who were close to the earlier Congress (I) regimes but who were pushed into the limbo during V.P. Singh’s tenure as Prime Minister have regained their respectability. It is not uncommon now to see the Hinduja brothers at official Indian gatherings in Geneva and London PP Hinduja and S.P-Hindujahung around Solanki during are reception here (February 6) in his honor leading many guests to wonder why the Indian Foreign Minister was socializing with relatives of one of the prime accused in the Bofors case.

But consider these facts and the sequence Solanki arrives in Switzerland on January 29 to attend the Davos symposium and spends four days here.

During his stay the Geneva court postpones hearings on Bofors because some of the appellant’s lawyers say their documents are not ready.

A week before this a rumor is started in Geneva that the Swiss authorities will receive a message from a very high office in India asking that the Bofors investigations be put in deep freeze.

On February 1 Solanki hands over the five-page note to Rene Filber with the message that nothing should be done in Switzerland till the matter is settled in Indian courts.

During the same week the CBI cancels a scheduled visit to Sweden and Switzerland without any explanation. The visit is rescheduled for three weeks later when a junior CBI official tells Schmid and Bonnant that the case should continue At this point no one within the Swiss investigative process is aware of Solankis memorandum which preceded the CBIs visit.

“The five-page memorandum takes a while to percolate down the people within the investigative process since it contradicts their brief from the CBI. Worse it confirms certain rumors in Geneva that had announced the memorandums arrival weeks before it actually. “The story leaks to the media and Dr. Schmid confirms that his superior authority has told him that Indian authorities want him to go slow (read dump) with the investigations.

This latest flurry of activity and the shabby attempt at scuttling the Swiss process suggests that evidence available with the banks in Geneva is damning. Whether or not India’s foreign minister went in to bat for those who want to suggest the case is a question that begs answer.

Article extracted from this publication >> April 10, 1992