Laughter rang out in Rajya Sabha for over an hour on Wednesday as leader of the opposition Arun Jaitley took apart the Liberhan Commission report, calling it a “tragedy of errors”.
After a fiery discussion in Lok Sabha, the debate on the report in Rajya Sabha followed its own path, with Jaitley departing from the emotional note struck by BJP president Rajnath Singh and Sushma Swaraj. He stuck to discrediting the judge and the 900-page report, terming it a “fraud on a fact-finding process”.
Pointing out an error in almost every page of the document, Jaitley attacked the legitimacy of the findings. “This error-ridden document cannot be accepted as the gospel on what happened on December 6, 1992,” he said.
“The judge, instead of sticking to his basic task of investigating the events, took this as an opportunity to talk about changing the world. A man who got 48 extensions in a post-retirement job says in his comments on civil servants that no retired person should get employment,” Jaitley said, making home minister P Chidambaram laugh.
Pointing out factual howler after howler in the report, he said it proved the adage that there were two kinds of judges. “One, who know the law and the other, who know the law minister. This judge is in the latter category.”
Jaitley alleged that the judge’s knowledge of “Queen’s English was somewhat limited” and that the report, therefore, was ghost-written, a fact acknowledged in the last page of the report by the judge himself. “After acknowledging that no evidence had been tendered on a conspiracy behind the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the judge comes to the conclusion that, nevertheless, there was a conspiracy,” he said.
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