# Win Chadha

Washesher Nath Chadha (1924 – 24 October 2001) was an Indian businessman. Chadha was noted for his business interests in the Indian arms industry and for allegations of involvement in the Bofors scandal.

## Early life and education

Washesher Nath Chadha was born in 1924 in Punjab Province, British India. Chadha came to Delhi, India, as a refugee after the Partition of India in 1947. Chadha was a Fulbright scholar and attended Columbia University in New York City, United States (U.S.), from where he graduated with a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD).

## Business career

Chadha's career began in sometime before 1962, when, after graduating from Columbia University, he began working at Johnson & Johnson, an American pharmaceutical and consumer goods company. Chadha was later sent by Johnson & Johnson to set up the company's operations in India; however, by 1962, he left the company and decided to start his own businesses, which were not successful. He returned to the U.S. and began working for BorgWarner, where he was involved in selling the company's defence equipment components to defence ministries in Asian countries.
In 1970, Chadha returned to India and founded Anatronic General Corporation, a company that initially represented several foreign American and European defence companies in India, and later transitioned to offering business consultancy services to defence companies. It was reported that Chadha would assist foreign defence companies win arms contracts released by the Indian government. Chadha's other business interests included investing and leasing equipment.

### Bofors scandal

In 1988, Chadha faced allegations of being involved in the Bofors scandal. The Bofors scandal, which took place during the 1980s and 1990s, centred on allegations that Bofors, a Swedish arms manufacturer, paid illegal commissions to middlemen, including Chadha, through companies and secret bank accounts in tax havens to win the contract to supply the 155 mm field howitzer to India in 1986. These payments were suspected to be bribes intended for Indian government officials, including then-Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi; however, these allegations were never proven and the legal proceedings were closed in 2011. At the time, allegations of corruption in the Bofors howitzer purchase caused enough politcal controversy that it contributed to Gandhi loosing the 1989 General Election.
Chadha was alleged to have been the agent for Bofors in India during the 1980s. Allegedly, during his time as the agent for Bofors, Chadha was paid between 1% and 6% of the howitzer contract value as a commission by the company for winning the contract for them. By the mid-1990s, Chadha, who was based in Dubai, came under investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation, which even sent a team to visit him. Despite suffering from health related problems, he returned to India in March 2000 as a respone to a summons by then-Special Judge Ajit Bharihoke. However, in October 2001, he died due to health related issues, and by 2011, the case against Chadha was closed. The allegations of corruption against Chadha were not proven, and despite the Income Tax Department auctioning his flat in Mumbai in 2019 over an allegation of tax default, the tax default remained merely as allegations.

## Personal life

Chadha was married to Kanta Chadha and they had one adopted son, Harsh Wardhan Chadha. Kanta Chadha died on 10 July 1993. Chadha died of cardiac arrest on 24 October 2001.