An Italian businessman fighting extradition to India over a 1986 bribery case involving Sweden's Bofors arms firm lost another round in the sessions court today.

The court ruled that it had no jurisdiction to deal with an application by Ottavio Quattrocchi for the release of his passport so that he could travel on business, the official Bernama news agency reported.

Quattrocchi, who has been on bail since his arrest in December 2000, alleges the extradition attempt is politically motivated.

He says he fell foul of an Indian political vendetta and his only crime was to have been a close friend of India's former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and his widow Sonia.

India's Central Bureau of Investigations has levelled charges against Quattrocchi as well as former Bofors agent Win Chadha, the British-based billionaire Hinduja brothers - Srichand, Gopichand and Prakash - and former Bofors chief Martin Ardbo.

All the charges relate to the 1986 scandal in which Bofors allegedly paid 14.2 million dollars in bribes to clinch a weapons contract with India worth a total of 1.3 billion dollars. (AFP)