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Updated: Mar 09, 2019 10:40 IST

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has defended Attorney General KK Venugopal, who argued in the Supreme Court against admitting “secret” documents pertaining to Rafale deal. The documents were cited by lawyer Prashant Bhushan while arguing for review of a Supreme Court judgment rejecting plea for independent probe in Rafale deal.

Taking to Twitter, Sitharaman said Venugopal in his submission in the Supreme Court meant that the documents cited by the petitioner was “secret” and not be put out in public domain. She said the attorney general clarified his statement in an interview with news agency PTI.

“Learned AG KK Venugopal told @PTI_News the Rafale documents were not stolen from the Defence Ministry & what he meant in his submission before the Supreme Court was that petitioners in the application used “photocopies of the original” papers, deemed secret by the government,” Sitharaman wrote on Twitter.

Also Read | ‘Rafale documents cited by Prashant Bhushan were stolen from defence ministry’: Govt tells SC

The change of stand by the government on “stolen” documents drew a swipe from Congress leader P Chidambaram. In a series of tweets, Chidambaram said the “thief” may have returned them.

“On Wednesday, it was ‘stolen documents’. On Friday, it was ‘photocopied documents’. I suppose the thief returned the documents in between on Thursday,” Chidambaram wrote on Twitter.

Venugopal on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that “documents relied on by the petitioners in their review petitions were stolen from the ministry and should not be relied on”.

His submission in the Supreme Court caused a political row with Congress president Rahul Gandhi targeting the government. Gandhi sought a criminal investigation in the matter keeping Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the ambit of probe.

Later, in a damage control, Venugopal told PTI, “I am told that the opposition has alleged what was argued (in SC) was that files had been stolen from the Defence Ministry. This is wholly incorrect. The statement that files have been stolen is wholly incorrect.”