“I suppose the thief returned the documents in between on Thursday,” Mr. Chidambaram said in a tweet on Saturday.

Mocking the Centre’s change of stance on Rafale-related documents published by The Hindu, senior Congress leader P. Chidamabaram noted that they had moved from “stolen documents” on Wednesday to “photo copied documents” on Friday.

“I suppose the thief returned the documents in between on Thursday,” said Mr. Chidambaram in a tweet on Saturday.

His tweets came a day after Attorney General K.K. Venugopal reversed his position on the issue and claimed that the documents related to the purchase of the Rafale fighter aircraft had not been stolen from the Defence Ministry. He clarified that what he meant in his Wednesday submission before the Supreme Court was that the petitioners had used "photocopies of the original" papers, deemed secret by the government.

The Rajya Sabha MP also took a swipe at Mr. Venugopal’s statement on Wednesday that investigations were going on to find out whether the publication of the documents by The Hindu was a crime, and a violation of the Official Secrets Act, 1923.

“On Wednesday, the Official Secrets Act was shown to the newspaper. On Friday, the Olive Branches Act was shown. We salute common sense,” tweeted Mr. Chidambaram.