New Delhi: The Centre will make a statement in Parliament on Tuesday on the detention of Ottavio Quattrocchi, the controversial Italian middleman, in Argentina. While the government maintains that it was not trying to hush up anything, it needs to answer a number of questions with regard to this issue.
And it's not just the 17-day delay in giving out information on Quattrocchi's detention that the government needs to explain.
The government has not been saying anything as to how the CBI was going to handle this rather embarrassing case. In fact, questions have been raised as to why the Centre misled the entire nation, including the courts, about the arrest in the first place.
There have also been questions as to whether the Argentinean response to the red-corner notice came as a bolt from the blue for the CBI? For, when it came, it appeared as if the CBI had long forgotten about the red-corner notice.
The Argentinean authorities sent three notices on the detention within the first week. The first notice came on February 7. It remains a mystery as to why did the CBI take 15 days to officially send its response to Buenos Aires.
The Central agency is also likely to face a number of questions as to why its men are reaching Argentina just four days ahead of the deadline when it had a month's time to file an official extradition request.
While the CBI faced a lot of criticism last year for allowing the defreezing of the Quattrocchi accounts, it remains to be seen how it explains the decision at the Argentina court now.
On Monday, the Supreme Court also raised questions as to whether the CBI lied to it about Quattrocchi on February 12.
Meanwhile, the junior Quattrocchi — Massimmo, son of Ottavio — was seen partying in a capital's five-star hotel recently. Massimmo Quattrocchi heads ClubInvest, a venture capital company that he operates in Italy, Spain, Switzerland and India.
He claims in-depth experience of international markets, particularly the Indian markets, and has an office in Banglaore. Like his father, he has allegedly developed quite a reputation as a wheeler-dealer.
There are a lot of unanswered questions in the Quattrocchi saga that goes beyond the CBI headquarters in New Delhi. Massimmo's presence in Delhi recently is one of them. Why did Massimmo Quattrocchi visit India at a time when his father was detained in Argentina? Massimmo was seen partying happily in New Delhi as if to suggest that he was given the assurance that his father will soon fly back to Milan.
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