FRONT PAGE | Wednesday, November 25, 2009 | Email | Print | 
Old whine in new bottle
Kumar Uttam | New Delhi
Liberhan report not worth a leak, says Jaitley
Seventeen years of probe, an expenditure of Rs 8 crore from public exchequer: Justice Manmohan Singh Liberhan Commission of inquiry into Ayodhya case has turned out to be a damp squib. Pending court cases, the report and ATR of the commission tabled in Parliament on Tuesday did not recommend any fresh action against 68 ‘indicted’ Parivar leaders and bureaucrats.
However, critical remarks about former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee have come as a shock to the BJP, which described it against the concept of natural justice since Vajpayee was not even summoned before the commission.
The 900-page report of Justice Liberhan, who has vehemently denied having leaked it to the media, reads like a political commentary on administrative reforms. At several places, Liberhan has generously ‘lifted’ the phraseology used by the anti-BJP forces to slam the party and its role in Ayodhya movement.
The commission has based most of its conclusions on what sounds like politically-motivated depositions and suggested the Government to separate politics from religion, bring reforms in the law and bureaucracy, give a re-look to Centre-State relations, streamline the intelligence agencies and tame the media.
To most of the suggestions, the Government responded (in the ATR) saying “noted”, “agreed”, “the issue would be looked into or it was already part of other legislations”.
The ATR also did not show a way forward and the Government appeared in a mood to bury the matter for now. “What do we have in the report to proceed further? What was necessary has already been done. The matter should be treated as over. Otherwise we would be giving oxygen to the BJP,” a senior Union Minister told reporters.
Legal experts pointed out that the recommendations will not have any bearing on the ongoing cases against senior BJP leaders,LK Advani and MM Joshi, in different courts. “The report was not even worth a leak,” Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley said.
For the record, Law Minister Veerappa Moily told reporters that “the Liberhan Commission is a fact-finding mission and further to that each Ministry is expected to take on that and take action.”
“ATR is clearly indictment of 68 persons, who are responsible for this episode. It also contains offences which one has collected. The Government has to take positive action,” he maintained.
Privately, leaders in the Congress and BJP admitted that with the tabling of the report the controversy lived its life of “a day or two”.
Even BJP leaders appeared deflecting the focus from indictment of senior leaders LK Advani and Joshi by raking up the issues of Vajpayee being named in the report and the leakage to the media.
“It has now been established that the report was leaked. We seek the resignation of the Home Minister P Chidambaram. He should quit the office before the discussion begins on the issue,” senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj said.
The report and the action taken report by the Government are expected to come up for discussion on December 1, but both the sides rule out anything dramatic to happen.
Party leaders admit that instead of dragging on the Ayodhya issue, it would take up other issues like scarcity of fertilisers and seed, inflation, flood, climate change and Koda scandal to be debated in Parliament.
Congress leaders even suggest that it would be better to keep the Ayodhya issue on the backburner for a while, as it might unite the Opposition against Home Minister P Chidambaram, who is accused of leaking the report to the media.
See Edit: Mockery of a probe — Liberhan has wasted public money
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