Cong Insists On Jain Report Publication

The Congress yesterday repeated its demand for making public the interim report of Jain Commission which went into the conspiracy behind the assassination of former Prime Minsiter Rajiv Gandhi.

The stress on the demand has led to speculation in the political circles that the party was pinning its hopes on certain portions of the report to indict UF partners, providing an opportunity to the Congress to crack the United Front.

While making the demand, party spokesman V N Gadgil refused to comment on whether the Congress thought that former Prime Minister V P Singh or United Front partner DMK was indicted in the Jain report. We have no knowlege of this, he said and added that it was to know what the report contained the party was demanding its publication.

The over 2000 pages 17 volume report is currently being processed by the government.

The Jain Commission was set up under Congresss P V Narasimha Rao government which had been giving extensions to the Commission.

When Gadgil was asked to comment on the delay in completion and submission of the report during the Congresss five year rule, Gadgil said the party had criticised all efforts to scuttle the progress of the probe in the past also and continued to do so even now.

When asked what would the Congress do if the government refused or failed to make the report public, Gadgil said as an opposition party Congress would see what could be done.

Party general secretary Oscar Fernandes had only a day earlier issued a Press release demanding that the Jain panel report should be made public.

There is no justification for postponing the publication, Gadgil said adding that the government need not wait till the Parliament Session began its sitting in November.

Immediate publication of the report will enable people to form their opinion about the findings of the report, the spokesman said. It would also be appropriate if the parliament discussed it after the report was made available to the people.

Gadgil denied media reports that Congress was raking the Jain panel issue in order to scuttle the progress on the Bofors inquiry. The second instalment of papers from Switzerland are supposed to arrive India soon.