Sorabjee has submitted a report to this effect to the Prime Minister following an inquiry ordered by him after adverse remarks from the apex court on the issue.

``In a matter as sensitive as the one Supreme Court was considering, one would have expected the deponent and for that matter the Department of Personnel and Training to be more careful and show a greater sense of responsibility,'' Sorabjee said in his report.

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had asked the Attorney General to inquire into how the affidavit was framed and filed in the court distorting an apex court judgment.

The court had come down heavily on the government saying the affidavit was rather misleading as it took shelterbehind the apex court judgment in the Jain hawala case which was not correctly quoted while supporting the transfer.

Sorabjee maintained that there was no evidence or material to warrant the conclusion that there was any sinister design or any intention on the part of the government to mislead the court in filing the affidavit of S Agarwal (an official).

``If the correct facts were conveyed to the Solicitor General (Sontosh Hegde) before the court hearing on September 8, a full explanation could have been given to the court and the occasion for court's observation would not have arisen,'' he said.

Sorabjee said neither the Law Ministry nor the Finance Ministry nor the Home Minister had any role to play in the preparation of the counter affidavit by the Centre, a paragraph which contained inaccurate statements about the contents of an office order.

``The responsibility for preparing and filing of the affidavit rests with the Department of Personnel and Training,'' the Attorney General said, adding, thesolicitor general could not be faulted in any manner in the conduct of the case.

Sorabjee said the reproduction of the impugned ``office memorandum'' in the affidavit of Agarwal was ``incorrect''. ``However, it was intentional. It was on account of carelessness and betrays lack of requisite responsibility,'' the report said.

It said in case the error in the affidavit had been acknowledged before the amicus curiae made a grievance in the court, there would have been no occasion for the Supreme Court to make observations about government causing embarrassment to it.

``This failure or omission is most regrettable and indicates casualness and lack of requisite care and circumspection. In a matter as sensitive as the one Supreme Court was considering, one would have expected the deponent and for that matter the Department of Personnel and Training to be more careful and show a greater sense of responsibility,'' he said.