Tehelka probe panel denies leak

By Our Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI, AUG. 23. The Justice Venkataswami Commission of inquiry today said it had not leaked certain portions of ``scurrilous'' transcripts of the ``Tehelka tapes'' which appeared in the media on Wednesday.

Taking exception to the publication of the scurrilous transcripts relating to engaging of prostitutes by tehelka.com for its operations, the Commission said an internal inquiry had confirmed the leakage was not from the Commission.

Meanwhile, the Additional Solicitor-General, Mr. Kirit Rawal, appearing for the Union of India submitted that there was no leak of the transcripts from the Defence Ministry, which had copies of the unedited portions of the tapes.

However, in the light of the publication of unpublicised portions of the transcript, he said the Government was compelled to claim privilege and that the Commission should hold in-camera proceedings in respect of all the sensitive defence deals identified in the tapes.

Mr. Gopal Subramaniam, counsel for the Commission agreed that some of the deals were very sensitive and there could be in- camera proceedings for them and not for all the deals.

The Commission said the question whether proceedings pertaining to all the defence deals should be held in-camera or not would be decided after the present proceedings in the `Kornet E' deal was over.

Referring to discrepancies between the unedited tapes and their transcripts, Mr. Justice Venkataswami said the Commission could not help it as the complaints were about unedited tapes and the charges would be basically considered on the basis of the edited tapes. Two weeks time was given by the Commission to those noticees, who had viewed the unedited takes, to file their response.

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Section  : National
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