When quizzed about Telecom Minister A Raja’s role in the Spectrum scandal at the HT Leadership Summit last week, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee preferred to talk about the hazards of condemning a person based on mere allegations of corruption. To drive home his point, he cited a famous example from the ’90s when a prominent and widely respected technocrat, who had headed three public sector units, was accused of corruption. Though the charges were never proved, the taint on the official remained. The septuagenarian minister did not name the official, but he was obviously referring to V Krishnamurthy, who had headed BHEL, SAIL and Maruti Udyog. Neither did he mention the fact that he himself was part of the government under P V Narasimha Rao which had hounded Krishnamurthy. But more importantly, Mukherjee cleverly got away without accusing or giving a clean chit to the Telecom Minister.