New Delhi: Swedish arms manufacturer A B Bofors on September 24 questioned the rationale behind CBI's decision not to prosecute the Army officers involved in the selection of its 155mm Howitzer guns, saying they should also have been chargesheeted if the contract was wrongly awarded to it.

"The fact that CBI could not find anything against the Army men who evaluated the gun as also against those who were part of price negotiation committee means there is nothing wrong with the contract," Bofors counsel Alok Sengupta told special Judge Prem Kumar during arguments on charge.

He cited the Attorney General's (AG) opinion in the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) report, and said at the most it could be termed as a breach of contract which was a civil wrong.

Claiming that there was no government policy to exclude agents in defence deals, Sengupta said, "in fact it was rumour spread by bureaucrats which everybody believed".

However, the Bofors counsel was in a tight spot when the court asked, "If at all there was no policy then why did the AG said that there was a breach of contract?"

"Some oral conversation might have taken place and as per the AG it can be treated as a part of the contract," Sengupta submitted.

The court related it to the then Defence Secretary S K Bhatnagar's intimation to the suppliers that they should keep agents out of defence deals, and observed Bhatnagar might have acted on the Prime Minister's directive on this point.

PTI