BJP, Cong trade charges over Liberhan report

FACE-OFF: CNN-IBN discussed the Liberhan Report and ATR with BJP and Congress leaders.

          

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The MS Liberhan Committee report to investigate into the demolition of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992, was tabled along with the Action Taken Report (ATR) on Tuesday in Parliament. There was furore over the mention of former prime minister and veteran Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee as a culpable party to the demolition of the Babri Masjid structure.

CNN-IBN debated the issue with BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad, Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari and Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) leader Ram Madhav.

CNN-IBN: Should Atal Bihari Vajpayee have been named in the Liberhan Commission report. Has the mask fallen off the former prime minister? He has been called a pseudo-moderate. He has been accused of making speeches that could have led to the communal discord. Vajpayee, the moderate, has had the mask removed. How do you react?

Ravi Shankar Prasad: Rajdeep, first and foremost, it is very unfortunate. Justice Liberhan has been a judge and remained as a Commissioner of Enquiry for 17 years only, with 48 extensions only, at Rs 10 crore expenses only. How could he miss the most elementary clause of the Enquiry Commission Act, Section 8B which clearly mandates that if you condemn any person, you must hear him, give him a notice? No order can be passed with prejudice. Vajpayee should be summoned or not was debated in 2003, the lawyer of the Commissioner has said earlier. It was pointedly rejected. Despite that, you do not give a notice to Vajpayee whose name was never mentioned by anyone. Yet you call him the iconic leader of the BJP and culpable along with 68 persons named therein. Now my charge is, with full sense of responsibility that this is a biased report. The name of Mr Vajpayee has been invoked in the patent violation of propriety and law, which has its own consequences.

CNN-IBN: Point taken. Manish Tewari, a very serious charge there being made by Ravi Shankar Prasad that the report is biased and Vajpayee's name should not have been included in it. How do you respond?

Manish Tewari: Well, Rajdeep Sardesai, this is not a report of the Union Government. The Union Government appointed a Commission of Enquiry. The Commission of Enquiry came to its own conclusions based upon the evidence that was before it. I think that only Justice Liberhan will be able to answer that question as to why the 8B process wasn't followed.

CNN-IBN: But Manish Tewari, the (then) prime minister gets a clean chit and Atal Bihari Vajpayee who claims that he was not even present there on December 6, is amongst them who some would say would say, as a result has been held culpable.