New Delhi: The Hinduja brothers on October 11 accused CBI of discriminating against former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by naming him in the Bofors charge sheet while leaving out R Venkataraman and P V Narasimha Rao, both of whom served as Defence Ministers when the 155mm gun deal was under active consideration.

"Both Venkataraman and Rao, who were Defence Ministers during the period of the contract also wanted to expedite the process of procurement," Hindujas' counsel Amit Desai told Special Judge Prem Kumar and sought to know "if that was not a misconduct, then how do they call a similar action by Rajiv Gandhi as misconduct."

Continuing with his arguments on the point of charge, Desai said it was wrong to say there was a governmental policy banning agents in Defence deals as way back as 1984.

"On July 7, 1984, when the first meeting of the price negotiating committee was held, the Joint Secretary (Defence) had asked bidders to declare their agents," Desai said.

"This shows the falsity of the FIR, wherein CBI alleged that there was reason to believe that Bofors and Win Chadha had knowledge of the governmental policy banning agents," he said adding International Military Services (IMS), which was one of the bidders had shown British government as its agent.

The charge sheet fails to mention Chadha's son Hersh Chadha besides the wives of Quattrochi and Chadha, who had been named in the FIR as being part of the conspiracy for getting the Rs 1472.72 crore contract awarded to Bofors, he said.

PTI