The BJP on Monday demanded that a criminal case be registered against all those who had been named in the Paul Volcker report as illegal beneficiaries of Iraq’s oil-for-food programme.

BJP General Secretary Arun Jaitley told reporters the R S Pathak Authority report was ‘‘half truth and a half cover-up.’’ ‘‘What the inquiry has not inquired into is qualitatively and quantitatively much more than what it has inquired into,’’ he observed.

Jaitley said the authority was dealing with coupons held by two beneficiaries—Natwar Singh and the Congress party—and had treated them differently. The Authority worked only with documents that had been made available to it. ‘‘Any committee which has no coercive powers to summon evidence is not able to do justice with such an inquiry,’’ he said.

The Authority, Jaitley pointed out, had no powers to probe the alleged Swiss money trail of the scandal. He ought to know who had signed the Iraqi oil contracts on behalf of the Congress.

When asked whether he would seek a criminal case against Natwar Singh, Jaitley said he was for a fair probe: ‘‘The two recipients have to be treated at par...In an investigation, you can’t put the lid on one end.’’

The BJP leader said the Authority had not examined the letters of Congress president Sonia Gandhi introducing the Congress delegation to the Iraqi authorities. ‘‘The Congress is both an accused and a decision-maker in the inquiry,’’ he charged.