Justice Manmohan Singh Liberhan has explained over 18 pages why he took 17 years to complete the Babri Masjid demolition report, for which he had originally been given only three months.

Part of the explanation is a description of the role played by the Commission’s former counsel, Anupam Gupta, whom Liberhan has slammed for “forestalling the submission of the report”.

“...I am of the opinion that for his own unstated reasons, he (Anupam Gupta) committed breach of professional duties and betrayed the trust reposed in him as Commission’s counsel, with the intended or unintended result of forestalling the submission of the Commission’s report,” Liberhan writes of his one-time protégé.

“Faced with an unhelpful, recalcitrant and unrepentant counsel, I had to perforce seek the services of another lawyer.”

Gupta left the Commission last year after accusing Liberhan of trying to shield L K Advani. When contacted by The Indian Express on Tuesday for his reaction to Liberhan’s charges, Gupta said: “The observations in the report are beneath contempt. I would not like to respond to any of them.”

According to Liberhan, Gupta initially discharged his duties “enthusiastically” and “conducted himself satisfactorily”, but later started “drifting” from his role of counsel for the Commission.

“Keeping in view all judicial restraint, decorum and traditions of the legal profession at my command, I can say that he proved to be unworthy of my confidence and the trust reposed by me in him,” Liberhan writes.

“At times, witnesses complained that they felt humiliated at his hands. It became increasingly embarrassing for me to control the proceedings — I was in the unhappy situation of having to ask my own counsel to restrain the wilder flights of his imagination and to refrain from brash and rude conduct. He started examining or cross-examining witnesses on behalf of the Commission tangentially to the questions referred.

... contd.