Govt will not table Bofors papers in Parliament

The government has requested Lok Sabha Speaker Purno A Sangma and Rajya Sabha Chairman K R Narayanan to invite party leaders for a discussion on the Bofors issue.

Speaking in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, Law Minister Ramakant Khalap claimed that revealing the contents of the bank documents received from the Swiss government on January 21 or tabling them in Parliament would not be proper at the present moment of time.

Khalap said India had assured the Swiss authorities that the bank papers would only be used for the purpose of an investigation into the kickbacks scandal. He claimed some issues were under investigation in Swiss courts and felt that any action to make the documents public would harm those proceedings.

By tabling the Bofors papers in Parliament, the minister said, "we would be offending the principles of investigation and the right of the accused.''

The demand for tabling the papers in the House on Tuesday morning came -- not from the BJP or the Left -- but by the Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee.

Though the media had been publishing stories on the documents every day, he said the government had not explained to Parliament what was going on. According to newspaper reports, he said the CBI has passed the issue of tabling the papers in Parliament to the political executive.

Mukherjee's demand found support from BJP member T N Chaturvedi.

At this stage, S S Ahluwalia (Congress) rose to say that Chaturvedi, a former comptroller and auditor general, had information on the issue in that capacity and could not be allowed to participate in the debate and make use of the same information.

Deputy Chairperson Dr Najma Heptullah ruled out the point of order, saying as a member of parliament, Chaturvedi could participate in the debate as long as he does not make use of the information that he had access to as CAG.