Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said there has been a sustained campaign of vilification and character assassination of former Finance Minister P Chidambaram in the INX Media case.

Talking to reporters at the AICC headquarters on Friday, Ramesh said the investigating agencies chose to suppress the facts that the INX Media case was part of a set of about 24 proposals put up to the Finance Minister for approval, and in that file, there were 11 signatures.

He said the Finance Secretary looks at the proposal twice — as chairman of the FIPB and as the Finance Secretary.

“So, the INX Media proposal has 11 signatures of officers, and the 12th signature dated 28/05/2007 is that of the then Finance Minister Chidambaram. These 11 signatures, no objections, no comments, the Finance Minister signs and when any minister receives a proposal with a signature from the 11 below, it is the normal Government of India practice, that you considered that there are no objections and the case is fit for approval,” Ramesh said.

Ramesh added INX Media was approved on 28 May, 2007, because it had gone through 11 layers of scrutiny.

“There has been no case filed against these officers. These officers have not been found to have done something illegal or something blatantly wrong. Now, if these officers have been exonerated, the question arises, how is the man who put the 12th signature, suddenly became the kingpin,” he said.

‘Political vendetta’

Ramesh alleged that the kingpins are within the government.

“The kingpins are within the government, who are waging this campaign of character assassination and vilification to defame not only an individual, not only a former minister, but also the Congress,” he said and maintained that it is a case of nothing less than a political vendetta.

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