Wednesday, February 8 2006 12:54 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court will take up on February 17 a petition seeking dismissal of Solicitor General G E Vahanvati and Additional Solicitor General B Dutta for their alleged connivance in 'facilitating' defreezing of the London bank accounts of Italian businessman Ottavio Quotrocchi, an accused in the Bofors payoffs.

Though listed for hearing today as a Public Interest Litigation, the matter could not be taken up for hearing at the Division Bench of Justices Virender Jain and Rekha Sharma as both of them have gone on leave.

The PIL filed on behalf of the Rashtriya Mukti Morcha by its President Ravinder Kumar sought action against the two top officials for their "failure" in discharging their duties to give correct legal advise to the Union Government on questions relating to continuation and withdrawal of cases pertaining to the Bofors scandal.

Besides seeking dismissal of the two officials, the petitioner sought issuance of notices to the Union Government, CBI Director, Secretary, Ministry of Law and Justice, Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs and another Additional Solicitor General K P Pathak.

Interestingly, though the petition had sought dismissal of the two officials, it had not sought action against any other Government or political functionary for their perceived involvement in defreezing Quotrocchi's bank accounts.

Incidentally, it was the Rashtriya Mukti Morcha that had earlier filed a petition in the JMM bribe scandal that had rocked the then P V Narasimha Rao Government.

Senior counsel P N Lekhi is expected to argue on behalf of the petitioner.