Open letter to PC over Army Chief’s leaked communication

To
Mr P Chidambaram
Home Minister of India,

Subject: Source of Leak of letter of COAS to the Prime Minister

Dear Mr Chidambaram,

Your announcement that the source of the leak of Chief of Army Staff’s (COAS hereinafter) letter would  soon be made public, would have been normally welcomed. However, coming from you it sounds ominous for the following reasons:

There were two reports that were leaked in the not too recent past. Both these reports involved the breach of privilege of Parliament and agitated the members of the Parliament at the material time. In both these reports the source of leak could have been either you or a very reputed judge.

In both the cases of leak you were in the studio of the TV channel after the leak allowing them to earn revenue on account of exclusive interview!

The first was the Justice Pathak Committee Report leaked in August 2006. Late Justice Pathak had been the CJI and a judge of International Court of Justice at the The Hague. He was certainly as honourable, if not more honourable than you.

The second was the Liberhan Commission Report, which was leaked on November 23, 2009. Once again you were the counter-party. When a reporter asked Justice Liberhan about the leak he was enraged as any human being whose integrity has been questioned would be. It was spontaneous.

Neither of the judges had any motive in the leak of their respective reports. In both the leaks Parliament was assured that the source of the leak would be investigated/inquired, but the nation has heard nothing so far.

Yet, you are confident that the source of leak of the letter of the COAS will be revealed soon but there is no word on the leaks involving you.

I hope there is something as FIFO (First in First out) in your Ministry, notwithstanding that it is not followed in the queue for Presidential pardon. The reason for investigations getting rigged are as follows:

The manner in which the investigations relating to the CD tapes, containing alleged conversation between Shanti Bhushan and Mulayam Singh,  were found to be genuine by scientific labs under you was shocking. I had Amar Singh’s tape from which material was spliced into the Shanti Bhushan tapes years before the latter tapes came into being.

Under your Ministry even scientific labs cannot be trusted as reports are doctored to suit the convenience of the vested interests like Amar Singh.

The manner in which you fixed Natwar Singh in the Oil-for-Food programme in Parliament while ensuring that Reliance, which was a larger offender, is not even inquired into was a blatant act of bias not expected of any Minister, much less a senior Minister.

I have purposely not raised matters relating to mining and killing of Naxals and their leaders.

However, given the above circumstances you are requested to kindly reveal the source of the two leaks in which you were involved in before giving the stamp of approval of a department under your Ministry which may come up with the finding that the source of leak of the letter of COAS to the PM is the Army and not the Ministry.

Regards,

A K Agrawal

(Arun Agrawal is the author of the book Reliance: The Real Natwar. The opinions expressed by the author and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not reflect the opinions of Canary Trap or any employee thereof)