NEW DELHI: The Rajya Sabha too rejected the Opposition-sponsored motion on the Volcker Committee Report after a day-long debate, which for the most part turned out to be an argument among legal members on Tuesday.

For the Opposition, Arun Jaitley reclaimed some of the ground lost so easily in the Lok Sabha on Monday. The crux of his remarks was that the government's strategy of investigation was sure to lead to a dead-end and perhaps that was its way of a legal "cover-up".

For the government, Kapil Sibal matched legal argument for argument and insisted that the Manmohan Singh Government was keen on uncovering the "truth" in the Volcker allegations.

Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, second heavy hitter from the treasury benches, competently demonstrated, as he had done in the Lok Sabha on Monday, that the Government was sincere as it was anxious to find out the veracity or otherwise of the inferences made in the Volcker Report.

From the Left, Sitaram Yechury appreciated the pace of investigations but wanted the issue viewed in the larger context of targeting of opponents of the U.S. policy in Iraq. The government must take action if the probe uncovered impropriety or violation of domestic laws.

As for the larger question of politicians being funded from abroad, he said the Left was prepared for investigations, which should be comprehensive.

Opening the proceedings, Mr. Jaitley questioned the "clean chit" given by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Union Minister Natwar Singh, who has been named in the Volcker Report. "It doesn't take legal training to understand that Mr. Natwar Singh is a non-contractual beneficiary in Iraq's Oil-for-Food programme."

Seeing a common thread between the involved parties named in the report, Mr. Jaitley said the coincidences were too many to be ignored. "What the government needed to investigate was who actually received the money, on whose behalf and where it was today." The government was taking the wrong route. The correct course would be to lodge a first information report (FIR) against Mr. Natwar Singh and "whoever used the Congress name. Only then a can court of law invoke the agreement with the Swiss government and issue a letter rogatory to a Swiss court to crack the secrecy of the Swiss bank."

Mr. Sibal said there was no need for filing an FIR in the absence of primary or secondary evidence of any offence. The Volcker Report was based on voluntary information as the committee did not have powers to summon individuals. "He (Mr. Volcker) did not operate like a Grand Jury." Mr. Chidambaram reiterated the government's resolve to go the root of the issue and punish anyone found guilty of violating the law of the land. Admitting that there was a "vast improvement in the case argued yesterday" by the Opposition, he pointed out that the government could not "rush" with the Volcker report to the police station. "We have to establish what law has been violated. If the investigating authority finds that any law has been violated, the guilty will be punished. Let there be no doubt on that score."

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