Chidambaram never consulted me before revising affidavit: Former home secretary

G K Pillai said that it was surprising to see that the minister was taking cover behind the home secretary

Former home secretary G K Pillai on Tuesday asserted that former finance minister P. Chidambaram never consulted him before revising the second affidavit in the Ishrat Jahan case.

Pillai said that it was surprising to see that the minister, who is competent to revise the affidavit, was taking cover behind the home secretary.

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"He is a minister and he is competent to revise the affidavit and he did that. The only question is whether he got it done in consultation with the home secretary, no. Whether he consulted with the Information Bureau, no. He sat in his own office and dictated the draft and filed it. And the affidavit was approved by him and filed," said Pillai.

"The issue is why he is taking cover behind the home secretary and the IB for the revised affidavit. The revised affidavit was done by him," he added.
 

 

Taking responsibility for the second affidavit in the Ishrat Jahan case, the former finance minister P. Chidambaram had yesterday said that it was disappointing that Pillai was distancing himself from it.

"Which part of the second affidavit is wrong? I accept the responsibility for this affidavit. It is disappointing that the Home Secretary, who is equally responsible, wants to distance himself from that," Chidambaram told the media in the national capital.

"It was brought to my notice that the first affidavit was filed without my approval and it was being misinterpreted. It was my duty to correct the first affidavit. So we filed a supplementary affidavit after consulting the Home Secretary, the Director of Intelligence Bureau and other officers," he added.

Pillai served under then home minister P. Chidambaram in 2009 when the government filed two affidavits in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case.

Chidambaram had earlier told a leading English daily that he felt it was possible to hold an 'honest opinion' in the Afzal Guru case and that the case was 'perhaps not correctly decided' and that there were 'grave doubts about the extent of his involvement' in the 2001 Parliament attack.

Ishrat Jahan, who was a resident of Mumbra near Mumbai, was shot dead along with three men on June 15, 2004, by the Gujarat Police in an encounter.