Pranab blames PMO for 2G note leak: report

Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee has blamed the prime minister's office (PMO) for leaking the controversial note on the 2G scam, according to a CNN-IBN report. Mukherjee will meet Congress president Sonia Gandhi today on his return from New York to discuss the fallout from the leak.

The note from the finance ministry to the PMO, leaked to the media, apparently accused P Chidambaram, then the finance minister, for failing to prevent the cheap sale of telecom spectrum without competitive bidding in 2008-09.

Mukherjee dashed from Washington to New York on Saturday evening to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is in the city to attend the UN General Assembly session.

The report says he has handed over all correspondence regarding the matter to the prime minister, and told him that the leak emanated from the PMO and not the finance ministry.

Mukherjee had refused to say anything on the matter after his meeting with Singh, saying he would comment only after reaching New Delhi after consulting the Congress president, Chidambaram – now the home minister – and others.
 
'Valued colleague'
At the end of his meeting with the prime minister, Mukherjee described Chidambaram as a ''valued colleague'', and added that he would speak with the home minister and the law minister on the relevance of the fresh correspondence between the finance ministry and the PMO on the 2G case.

''I will go through the papers when I reach New Delhi and find out what their legal implications are,'' Mukherjee said.