New Delhi:
On Monday, the CBI is likely to admit in the Supreme Court that Law Minister Ashwani Kumar and Attorney General GE Vahanvati both asked for changes to its report on its coal investigation before the document was submitted to judges last month.
The CBI's top brass was closeted in meetings with its lawyer UU Lalit all of Saturday after which the details of the affidavit were finalised, details of which NDTV has access to. The CBI director Ranjit Sinha will sign the affidavit on Monday and hand it over to the Supreme Court. The Law Minister has claimed that the changes he asked for were "suggestions of a minor nature." Sources say the CBI's affidavit will state otherwise.
The agency is likely to reveal that the minister, at a meeting in his office with the Attorney General and CBI chief Ranjit Sinha, disagreed with a line on "rules not being followed in coal allocation" and asked for it to be phrased in the "passive voice to dilute its impact". He is also said to have argued that this could not be reflected as a finding till the CBI completes a detailed probe.
Sources say the CBI will also confess that the Attorney General saw several drafts of the report. He has said in the Supreme Court that he did not review the document.
What happens next to the two officials, already accused of grave breaches of protocol, is likely to depend on the Supreme Court's reaction to the CBI affidavit that the agency was asked to furnish at a stormy hearing last week.
The judges reacted sharply to the CBI's confession - also given in writing - that its report had been vetted by the Law Minister, and a bureaucrat each in the Coal Ministry and the Prime Minister's Office. Those bureaucrats, who have not yet been named, will find mention in the affidavit, sources say.
The scandal around "coal-gate" has proved to be a scalable disaster for the government. The Opposition's demand for the resignation of the Prime Minister and the Law Minister on the grounds that the latter tried to interfere with the CBI's inquiry has paralysed Parliament for several days.
Many within the Congress believe that Mr Kumar must accept responsibility for the morass and step down. The fact that he has not offered to resign has isolated him further within his party.