Pranab clarifies on 2G note: not new,part of background paper

Mukherjee is learnt to have informed party and ministerial colleagues at a late evening meeting that there is nothing new in his letter to the Prime Minister. He has only put in writing what he had told the PM at a meeting in New York on Sunday.

A day after the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) witnessed sharp exchanges,with opposition party members accusing the government of keeping the finance ministry note from the committee,union ministers Pawan Bansal,Rajeev Shukla and V Narayanasamy,accompanied by JPC chairman P C Chacko,called on Mukherjee late in the evening to discuss the issue.

Mukherjee was said to have explained to them that the said finance ministry note was a background paper and it had “nothing new” from what was already in the public domain and,therefore,there was no need to present it in the JPC. Their meeting,however,remained inconclusive and they are likely to have another round of discussion on Thursday to finalise their stand on this issue in the JPC.

Mukherjee was learnt to have offered the same explanation to Congress president Sonia Gandhi when he had met her on Monday evening. Sonia had held separate meetings with Chidambaram and Mukherjee the same evening in a bid to put a lid on the controversy arising out of the finance ministry note.

The two senior ministers were expected to meet the PM after his return to the country on Tuesday. Till Wednesday evening though,no such meeting had taken place,although Chidambaram attended the lunch hosted by the prime minister for former Britsh premier Tony Blair today. Official sources said there was no one-on-one meeting between the PM and the home minister on the 2G issue.

Sonia was also expected to meet the prime minister to discuss the matter.

As the Supreme Court on Wednesday adjourned a hearing on Subramanian Swamy’s petition in this regard for tomorrow,the ruling dispensation anxiously awaited the court’s view on the matter. The Congress continued to bat for the home minister,with party spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi maintaining that as finance minister, Chidambaram had opposed first-come-first-serve option.

As for the controversial finance ministry note,he said it was a “factual summary followed by a judgmental sentence of an officer”. “Can it bring guilt if it does not exist? Can it absolve guilt if it does exist? How can a ministry note have an effect on guilt? The legal effect of such a note is zero,” he said.

While clarifying that he was not making any judgment on former telecom minister A Raja or commenting on the merits of the case,which is subjudice,the spokesman said Raja could “possibly prima facie be held guilty” for a variety of allegations like change of date and timing. “Chidambaram cannot be accused of any such thing.”

“The 2011 note has zero effect,” said Singhvi.