New Delhi, May 2 (IANS) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Saturday alleged that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had “damaged the institution of the PM” for saying that the case relating to Ottavio Quattrocchi was an “embarrassment” to the Indian government.
BJP general secretary Arun Jaitley told the CNN-IBN television channel that the “case was damaged by the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) under this government”.

Manmohan Singh had “damaged the institution of the PM”, he charged.

Jaitley was responding to remarks the prime minister made in his interview to the channel.

Manmohan Singh said: “The Quattrocchi case is an embarrassment for the government of India. We have tried to extradite him from Malaysia. We have tried to extradite him from Argentina. We have failed. The court says we do not have a strong case.”

The prime minister added: “It’s not a good reflection on the Indian legal system that we harass people while the world says we have no case. The Interpol had asked the government of India that why do you want to treat him under the Red Corner notice.”

Italian businessman Quattrocchi is a suspect in the Bofors gun purchase payoff scandal of the late 1980s.

Jaitley said if a BJP-led government came to power after elections, it would investigate all such cases “where the government had colluded with the CBI” to help the accused.

In November 2008, the CBI under the advice of the attorney general asked the Interpol to remove Quattrocchi’s name from its look-out notices.

The revelation earlier this week created a furore with the opposition accusing the Congress-led government of trying to hush up the case.

Quattrocchi, accused by the CBI of receiving millions of dollars in commissions for helping to fix the $1.4 billion gun deal, was detained in February 2007 in Argentina on the basis of an Interpol warrant, while he was holidaying with his wife.