Ottavio Quattrocchi

What a relief! Finally, the Government of India has closed the Q-files and informed Supreme Court accordingly. Justice will prevail as Supreme Court consigns the files to archives in a matter of a day or two. Ottavio Quattrocchi had undergone two-decade long unfair trial, mostly by the vindictive media. The attempts to extradite him to India have been futile. CBI lost extradition case and had to pay for his legal expenses. His bank accounts were frozen by CBI and defrozen by Law Ministry; he was arrested and released elsewhere and he had undergone ill-treatment, as though he is a common criminal. No, he was not. He is a respectable Italian Businessman. For his acquaintance with a co-citizen Ms. Antonia Maino, how can he be treated so harshly in India? If it is so unpardonable, all her present 1.2 billion co-citizens, friends, followers and admirers in India are equally guilty.


Satyameva Jayate means "Truth Alone Triumphs".

Mr. Narasimhan Ram (also known as N. Ram and fondly known as Ram), editor in chief of the The Hindu daily now is a well-known journalist of L’affaire Bofors fame. He received Asian Investigative Journalist of the Year (1990) for “searching for the truth in the then famous Bofors Case”. He published dozens of documents on daily basis in a serial form on the front and inner pages of The Hindu replete with annotations and detailed serialized articles for over a month in his capacity as a key member of editorial board and also went on record saying “we have hundreds of documents related to the scandal but will not reveal their source”. Ram got enlightenment. Enlightenment has the curious habit of dawing spontaneously, without a warning! One day The Hindu abruptly stopped referring to Bofors scandal whithout any explanation to its readers. Later, Ram received Padma Bhushan (1990).

Indian Government has a moral obligation to compensate Quattrocchi for the mental agony he had gone through for two long decades. He faced it like a man and came out clean. India should send a clear message to the world that Indian ethos and injustice will never go together by conferring Bharat Ratna on him.