New Delhi, Jun 29 : Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today sought to put an end to suspicions about the office of Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee being bugged, saying Intelligence Bureau had found nothing of that sort and it was a “closed chapter”.
In an interaction with a group of editors here, Singh said he had directly instructed IB to look into the matter without Home Minister P Chidambaram being aware of it.
“He (Mukherjee) did complain to me. I instructed the IB to do a thorough check. It reported back to me, saying there is nothing of that sort,” the Prime Minister said. He was responding when asked whether the Finance Minister had complained to him that there was an apparent bid to bug his office.
“It is a closed chapter,” Singh underlined. When asked whether the Home Minister was not taken into confidence on the matter, he replied, “That is true. In the government, there is a ‘need to know' principle. As Prime Minister, I asked IB to satisfy me whether there is anything of this sort.”
Suspicions about bugging of Mukherjee's office had arisen after some adhesives were detected some time late last year. PTI
