Solanki grilled on contents of Davos letter in Bofors case

The Central Bureau of Investigations' probe into the alleged payoffs in the Bofors gun deal have made headway following the interrogation of former external affairs minister Madhavsinh Solanki at the bureau's headquarters in New Delhi on Tuesday, March 25.

Solanki had resigned from the Narasimha Rao government following reports alleging that he attempted to impede the investigations by asking his Swiss counterpart to go slow on the question of handing over to India secret bank documents relating to the kickbacks.

He had, however, clarified later that he had merely handed over to the Swiss minister a letter of a lawyer whose name he could not remember.

Official sources say Solanki was questioned for about four hours. The Special Investigation Team set up to go into all the aspects of the Bofors case put questions to Solanki, including some about the contents of the letter he had handed over to the Swiss minister in Davos.

CBI Director Joginder Singh had stated in Ahmedabad on Tuesday, March 25, that the chargesheet to be filed in the court by April 30 would show the ''hard work'' put in by the bureau in the Bofors case.

The CBI has, so far, examined two other former federal ministers, Arun Singh and Arun Nehru, former army chief General K Sundarji, former retired Defence Secretary S K Bhatnagar and half a dozen retired lieutenant generals ever since the 500-page secret Swiss bank documents were brought from Berne, Switzerland, in the last week of January.

UNI