The alleged Bofors scam was about kickbacks worth Rs 66 crores (approx) involving the Hinduja Family and a constellation of brokers et al associated with the G family. By the time the roving inquiry/fishing expedition had ended, the GoI had spent over Rs 250 crores, which included multiple foreign trips by "investigating officers" and lawyers. More importantly, the transfer of tech that happened way back in mid-80s got stalled. Only recently, those blueprints have finally been actualized into an "indigenous" howitzer.

It actually took a Kargil War for India to discover the worth of Bofors guns. Even then successive govts, including successive "nationalist" ones took more than two decades to implement the ToT blueprints that had already been handed over in the mid-80s!

Similarly, this "Italian" nonsense concerning the G family has cost Indian Navy subs to operate without heavyweight torpedoes and the ships without advanced helos. With Russia firmly in the Chinese corner, India needs powerful friends. US and UK are dicey.

Those powerful friends need meaty deals. Hence if this BW report is true, expect some major defense deals between India and Italy or with big EU player wherein the Italians have a significant stake. Just like the C-295 deal benefits not just Airbus (primarily identified as French) but also UK and Spain.

The million dollar question is this: can these documents be made public? Or do they have to be kept confidential, as they were submitted in the course of the Italian investigation? Are we bound by Italian law? Does anyone know?

https://businessworld.in/article/what-did-pm-modi-bring-from-italy-523536