Ahead of the two-hour Cabinet meeting, senior ministers A K Antony and Shinde as also Ahmed Patel, Political Secretary to Congress President, met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
This meeting apparently set the tone for the Cabinet meeting as by then it was clear that the government was against using the ordinance route.
At the Cabinet meeting, Shinde and Sibal are learnt to have said that these measures require wider discussions and it was better that these be left for Parliament to deliberate upon.
The government was initially enthusiastic about bringing ordinances on five anti-corruption legislations which remained pending in the just-concluded extended Winter session of Parliament.
The enthusiasm was driven by Rahul Gandhi's push to these as he insisted that these were important to build a "framework" to fight corruption.
