New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked
an advocate pursuing the Bofors pay-off case to withdraw his
petition seeking directions to CBI to take action for stopping
defreezing of bank accounts of Italian businessman Ottavio
Quattarocchi, an accused in the case, in London.
The apex court, however, gave liberty to the lawyer to
file a fresh writ petition, saying the prayers made in the
petition filed in 2006 has become infructuous.
"You withdraw this pending petition and file a fresh
writ petition as none of the prayers survives," a Bench
comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justices Deepak
Verma and B S Chauhan said.
The Bench declared the petition as "dismissed as
withdrawn".
It passed the order after advocate Ajay Agrawal, who
wanted to pursue the petition with amended prayers, accepted
the suggestion of the Bench and withdrew his petition and
various other applications filed by him relating to
Quattrocchi.
Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium submitted that an
application by the CBI for withdrawal of the case against
Quattrocchi was pending before the Chief Metropolitan
Magistrate (CMM) and Agrawal has opposed it.
The matter is listed for hearing before the CMM
tomorrow.
When the matter came up for hearing, the Bench said
nothing survives in the petition as the accounts of the
accused had already been defreezed.
However, Agrawal submitted CBI was anxious to finish the
case against Quattrocchi.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, who joined Agrawal, also
said there were various issues which required to be heard by
the court.
They submitted that the matter cannot be allowed to be
disposed of as several related developments had taken place
after the filing of petition relating to Quattrocchi.
The court said any other issues relating to the matter
can be raised by the petitioner in the fresh writ petition.
PTI
First Published: Tuesday, March 30, 2010, 18:42