I was legally paid for CWG services: Sashi Tharoor

No stranger to controversy by now, former minister of state for external affairs Shashi Tharoor is back in the news over payment of money to him by the tainted organising committee of the scam-ridden Delhi Commonwealth Games last year for consultancy services.

Tharoor on Sunday described the reports as ''malicious'', saying that he was ''officially, formally and legally paid'' for the services rendered by him when he was not in public life.

He also said that he legally retained his foreign bank accounts as all former non-resident Indians were entitled do under Reserve Bank of India RBI rules and that there was no impropriety in doing so.

Sources in the Comptroller & Auditor's office seemed to confirm Tharoor's defence. The CAG, which has sent an audit memo to the games organising committee, said there have been findings that Tharoor had been paid. ''But the payment is not illegal as it was due to him as part of the consultation fee. We have mentioned it in the audit memo sent to the OC. The final report is yet to be finalised,'' the CAG said.

In a statement, Tharoor, who had to resign as union minister following a controversy over the Kochi Indian Premier League cricket team ownership last year, said the consultancy services were rendered between September 2008 and January 2009 during a period well before he entered public life and when he had no relationship with the government.

''The consultancy fee charged was a token sum, and the total sum paid ($30,000 less taxes) was far below the fee that I used to command even just to make a single speech,'' the Lok Sabha MP from Kerala said.