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New Delhi. The final legal verdict has been reached in the Bofors gun deal scandal, one of the most notorious in Indian history. The Supreme Court has completely dismissed the last pending petition in the case, which had been pending for nearly four decades.

Court’s Decision and Bench

The case was heard by a Supreme Court bench comprising Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran. The bench also categorically refused to entertain the final appeal filed by lawyer and BJP leader Ajay Kumar Agarwal against the 2005 Delhi High Court decision. Furthermore, the court clarified that there is no longer any legal basis to proceed further in the case.

The 2005 Delhi High Court decision remains in force.

The Supreme Court’s landmark 2005 Delhi High Court decision, which dismissed all charges against the leading European industrialists, the Hinduja brothers, including Srichand, Gopichand, and Prakashchand Hinduja, as well as the Swedish arms manufacturer AB Bofors, will remain in force. It should be noted that in 2018, the CBI filed a main appeal against the Delhi High Court’s decision. The Supreme Court dismissed that appeal, citing an inordinate delay of 4,522 days. Following the dismissal of the CBI’s appeal, Ajay Agarwal’s petition was the only remaining legal hope, which has now ended.

What was the Bofors scandal?

On March 24, 1986, an agreement was signed between the Indian government and Swedish arms company AB Bofors for the purchase of 400 FH-77 howitzers for ₹1,437 crore (approximately $1.43 billion). Controversy erupted in April 1987 when Swedish Radio claimed that bribes totaling ₹64 crore (approximately $1.6 billion) were paid to Indian politicians, defense officials, and middlemen to secure the deal. This controversy caused significant political damage to the then-Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s government, leading to Congress’s ouster from power in the 1989 general elections. The investigation into the case lasted nearly 40 years. During this investigation, approximately ₹250 crore (approximately $2.5 billion) was spent from the public treasury on court and criminal proceedings. Ultimately, no concrete evidence was found against those accused of bribery in court.