Surprised UPA? Famous note was released thrice under RTI

The shock and surprise with which the government has reacted to the release of the finance ministry’s note is in itself a surprise. For,the 10-page note suggesting that then finance minister P Chidambaram could have got A Raja to cancel the 2G licences was actually released by the Prime Minister’s Office as part of a response to a Right to Information (RTI) application not once but thrice this year.

The note,drafted on March 25,2011,by finance ministry official P G S Rao,was first released to a Maharashtra-based RTI activist in May and subsequently to Delhi-based RTI activist Subhash Agarwal in July. It turned into a political hot potato only last week when BJP’s RTI specialist Vivek Garg secured the same note through another RTI application which then got included in Subramanian Swamy’s petition in the Supreme Court.

This chain of events became clearer after an impromptu inquiry at various levels in the government. Sources said that in New York,Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee expressed his displeasure — over the release of the note — to the Prime Minister’s Principal Secretary T K A Nair. Incidentally,Nair is said to have approved the note’s release in July. Mukherjee is understood to have told Nair that the finance ministry should have been consulted before he approved its release.

Nair has been redesignated as Advisor to the Prime Minister after the appointment of Pulok Chatterji as his replacement.