New Delhi, December 9
A day after Home Minister P Chidambaram castigated the Sangh Parivar over demolition of Babri Masjid, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today dismissed Liberhan Commission’s findings as a “tragedy of errors”.

The short discussion on the one-man panel’s report and trial of the case created intense heat in the Upper House with repeated arguments between members of the BJP and those ranged against the party. Leader of the Opposition, Arun Jaitley, was interrupted on quite a few occasions by Home Minister and Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal as he questioned almost all the panel’s recommendations.

“The report is a fraud… the fact-finding process was used for 17 years only to perpetuate self-employment,’’ Jaitley contended, adding that its leakage was as “dubious” as its content. Amid thumping of desks by BJP members, Jaitley - a legal luminary - wanted to know who had authored the report. In the same breath he pointed out that the panel had itself named Harpreet Singh Giani as the person who had analysed evidence and given ideas for writing the report.

Continuing the scathing attack, Jaitley argued that a probe panel has to give its finding on the basis of evidence and not give its own opinion. The judge ignored the entire evidence and came with a report, which has now become a national embarrassment, he said. “Was the judge a truth investigator or a political pundit?’’ he asked jokingly, drawing the attention of the house to various “inconsistencies” in the report.

“He (Justice Liberhan) errs on basic facts… gets the date of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination wrong… says Veer Savarkar was the founder of the RSS and you want the country to take the report seriously?’’ he asked.

The BJP leader said that such judicial commissions were usually headed by those who either know the law or the Law Minister. “I think he (Justice Liberhan) falls in the second category,’’ he said.

Jaitley wondered how Justice Liberhan had passed adverse remarks against former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee without ever calling him to depose before the commission.