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Jain panel report 'surprises' Chidambaram

Union Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram has expressed surprise at the criticism reportedly directed at him by the Jain Commission's report in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.

Quoting extracts published in India Today, Chidambaram said he had been criticised as he had ''gone a little mild and soft in his deposition (before the Commission) as compared to his speech in Parliament.

''If the report is true, this criticism misses the central issue,'' said the finance minister in his rejoinder to the weekly.

''While giving evidence, the commission says, I 'adhered to the contents' of my speech (in the Lok Sabha on February 25, 1991, on the dismissal of the Dravida Munnetra Kazagham in Tamil Nadu)... It appears that the commission expected me to tender new and more 'evidence'. I cannot invent oral evidence just to please someone.... The distinction between a speech in Parliament and the requirements of oral evidence is very obvious to a lawyer and even to a layman... it has unfortunately escaped the Jain Commission.''

He made it clear that he was not a noticee under Section 80B of the Commission of Inquiry Act and no adverse findings could be recorded against him.

EARLIER COLUMNS:
P Chidambaram and the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi
The Jain Commission can at last focus on the 'sequence of events'
which led to Rajiv's killing

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