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The Bofors scandal was a major corruption scandal in India in the 1980s

The Bofors scandal was a major corruption scandal in India in the 1980s; the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and several others were accused of receiving kickbacks from Bofors AB for winning a bid to supply India’s 155 mm field howitzer. The scale of the corruption was far worse than any that India had seen before, and directly led to the defeat of Gandhi’s ruling Indian National Congress party in the November 1989 general elections.

The scandal was worth Rs 640 million (Rs. 64 crore).

The case came to light during Vishwanath Pratap Singh’s tenure as defence minister, and was revealed through investigative journalism by Chitra Subramaniam of the newspapers The Hindu and Indian Express.

The name of the middleman associated with the scandal was Ottavio Quattrocchi, an Italian businessman who represented the petrochemicals firm Snamprogetti. Quattrocchi was close to the family of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and emerged as a powerful broker in the ’80s between big business and the Indian government.

Even while the case was being investigated, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated on May 21, 1991 for an unrelated cause.

In 1997, the Swiss banks released some 500 documents after years of legal wrangling and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed a case against Quattrocchi, Win Chadha, also naming Rajiv Gandhi, the defence secretary S. K. Bhatnagar and a number of others. Several attempts to extradite Quattrocchi failed.

Meanwhile February 5, 2004 the Delhi High Court quashed the charges of bribery against Rajiv Gandhi and others, but the case is still being tried on charges of cheating, causing wrongful loss to the Government, etc. Win Chadha also died.

On May 31, 2005, the High court of Delhi dismissed the Bofors case allegations against the British business brothers, Shrichand, Gopichand and Prakash Hinduja.