Govt to table Jain report

NEW DELHI, Nov 4: In a move meant to pre-empt its allies and opponents from making too much noise over the delay in making public the inter...

NEW DELHI, Nov 4: In a move meant to pre-empt its allies and opponents from making too much noise over the delay in making public the interim report of the Jain Commission, the Government appears to have decided to table it in the coming Parliament session.

The Congress has already demanded that much, and so has Janata Dal (JD) veteran VP Singh. And the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has drawn up its own plans to steal the initiative from the rest. According to reports, the party is set to move a resolution in Parliament seeking the tabling of the report.

Home Ministry officials are working on the assumption that the interim report will be tabled during the winter session. But there still is a fair amount of work to be done on it before the session gets under way on November 19.

Story continues below this ad

The report is at present being studied by the Ministries and Departments — which find mention in it — for their comments. The Home Ministry has already send out reminders asking them to hurry up with the job, sources said.Once the different Departments send in their responses, a Group of Ministers will collate them into an Action Taken Report (ATR), a Home Ministry official said.But there already is some speculation that the Centre might choose to make its task easier by tabling just the interim report, and assuring that the ATR will be drafted when Justice Milap Chand Jain files his final report.There is also talk that the Government might table just the bare report, withholding the annexures with sensitive information from intelligence agencies.The interim report which runs into 17 volumes, including annexures, has not dealt with the main task assigned to the one-man commission — unearthing the conspiracy behind the 1991 assassination of the late Rajiv Gandhi. It concerns itself only with the sequence of events leading up to the murder.But even this will be enough to turn some faces red.

The report is said to have dwelt on the relationship between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) Government in Tamil Nadu.

With the Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC), made up of friends of Rajiv, and the DMK now being part of the ruling United Front (UF), the issue could strain the coalition.

Always hinting at the withdrawal of support to the UF Government, the Congress sees in the report a chance to put the ruling coalition on the defensive by harping on the role of one of its constituents in the assassination.

Story continues below this ad

The Government’s reluctance to hand over to the Commission documents demanded by it during the course of its hearings offers another opportunity to embarrass the UF.

The VP Singh Government’s decision to withdraw the Special Protection Group (SPG) cover around Rajiv is another contentious issue.