Date:02/07/2009 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/07/02/stories/2009070261021000.htm

National

“I am yet to read Liberhan report”

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: A day after Justice (Retd) M.S. Liberhan submitted his report to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh , Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram said on Wednesday that he would comment only after reading the report.

“I have not read the report. It is ‘huge’ and lying in a sealed bag. I have not opened the bag, and that is the truth and whole truth,” he told reporters.

Asked whether the report on the sequence of events leading to the Babri Masjid demolition would be tabled in the budget session of Parliament beginning on Thursday, along with the Action Taken Report, he said that first of all, he would have to read it. “But I am not that slow also.”

The Congress refused to take a stand on the Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid issue, saying the matter was sub judice.

“The matter is sub judice. If there is a national consensus, we will go by it. The party cannot pre-judge a national consensus,” spokesman Manish Tewari said.

Asked when a consensus would emerge, he said: “In the life of a nation, there are moments...let us wait.”