On February 17, the Delhi high Court will take up a petition seeking the dismissal of Solicitor General G E Vahanvati and Additional Solicitor General B Dutta.

It addresses their alleged hand in 'facilitating' the defreezing of the London [Images] bank accounts of Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi, an accused in the Bofors payoffs.

Though initially listed for hearing on Wednesday as a public interest litigation, the matter could not be taken up at the Division Bench of Justices Virender Jain and Rekha [Images] Sharma, as both of them are on leave.

The PIL, filed on behalf of the Rashtriya Mukti Morcha by its president Ravinder Kumar, sought action against the two top officials for their 'failure' in discharging their duties to give correct legal advice to the union government on questions relating to continuance and withdrawal of cases pertaining to the Bofors scandal.

Senior counsel P N Lekhi is expected to argue on behalf of the petitioner.

Besides seeking dismissal of the two officials, the petitioner sought issuance of notices to the union government, CBI director; secretary, Ministry of Law and Justice; secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs and the other Additional Solicitor General, K P Pathak.

Interestingly, though the petition had sought dismissal of the two officials, it had not sought action against any other government or political functionary for their perceived involvement in defreezing Quattrocchi's bank accounts.

Incidentally, it was the Rashtriya Mukti Morcha that had earlier filed a petition in the JMM bribe scandal, which had rocked the previous P V Narasimha Rao government.

Complete coverage: The Bofors scandal