P Chidambaram Slams AG Venugopal’s U-Turn, Says Thief Returned Documents In Between On Thursday

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Senior Congress leader and former Finance Minister P Chidambaram has reacted strongly the U- turn by Attorney General K K Venugopal on the stolen Rafale documents.

Venugopal’s comments in the apex court on Wednesday that Rafale fighter jet deal documents were stolen had caused a political row, with Congress president Rahul Gandhi targeting the government over stealing of such sensitive papers and seeking a criminal investigation.

Hitting back at Attorney General’s  fresh remark on Rafale documents, Chidambaram said that from “stolen documents” they became “photocopied documents” as the “thief” may have returned them.

“On Wednesday, it was ‘stolen documents’. On Friday, it was ‘photocopied documents’. I suppose the thief returned the documents in between on Thursday,” Chidambaram said in a series of tweets.

“On Wednesday, the Official Secrets Act was shown to the newspaper. On Friday, the ‘Olive Branches Act’ was shown. We salute common sense,” the former finance minister said.

Venugopal had sought dismissal of a petition for a review of the Supreme Court’s earlier judgment on the Rafale deal on the ground that the fresh plea relied on documents “stolen” from the Defence Ministry and that investigations were going on to find out if it was a crime and violative of the Official Secrets Act.

“I am told that the opposition has alleged what was argued (in SC) was that files had been stolen from the Defence Ministry. This is wholly incorrect. The statement that files have been stolen is wholly incorrect,” Venugopal told PTI , in an apparent damage-control exercise.