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Govt attacked over Bofors

Legal luminaries including former Union ministers have lashed out at the government for the inclusion of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi's name in the Bofors chargesheet describing it as ''political vendetta and a blow on criminal jurisprudence''.

Speaking at a seminar on 'Can a deceased be chargesheeted?' the lawyers including former Union minister H R Bharadwaj, former additional solicitor general K T S Tulsi and former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association M C Bhandare said the timing of the filing of the chargesheet was inappropriate and smacked of a political conspiracy.

''Why wasn't Rajiv Gandhi questioned for more than a year before his death? The inclusion of his name in column two of the chargesheet is self-contradictory because under section 161 of the CRPC he cannot be questioned since he is not alive to defend himself,'' Bharadwaj said alleging that from day one there was a political motive attached to it.

He said that column two under which the name of the late Congress president appears in the chargesheet, is never used against dead persons. ''It is a totally uncivilised way of using the judicial process.''

Former governor Siddhartha Shankar Ray, who was also expected to attend, said in his message that there was no judicial precedent anywhere which suggested such an absurd procedure. He said there was not even a single allegation against the former prime minister in the entire chargesheet. ''Perfidy, malafide and dishonesty are writ large on the chargesheet,'' he said.

The former governor said this (the inclusion of Rajiv's name) was not merely a legal matter but an issue of far greater importance involving human values and norms, morality and ethical code of behaviour.

K T S Tulsi described it as ''grossly unfair and a great fall in the standards of criminal jurisprudence''.

M C Bhandare said there was a ''deep conspiracy'' behind the timing of the filing the chargesheet. They (the government) should have waited instead of rushing into it. ''The timing of the filing of the chargesheet was morally, politically, legally incorrect,'' he said.

The seminar was organised by the Indian Lawyers Congress.

UNI

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