Tehelka: Phukan panel refuses to record evidence all over again

The Phukan Commission of inquiry probing the Tehelka expose today decided not to record evidence afresh even as it refused to put on record Tehelka’s paper on withdrawing from future proceedings after Attorney General Soli Sorabjee took strong exception to the ‘‘language’’ used in the document.

After hearing the arguments of Sorabjee and the other counsel, the Commission decided to continue the proceedings from the point left by Justice K. Venkataswami, Phukan said. He gave four weeks’ time to the Commission counsel to go through the evidence recorded so far.

Phukan admitted Tehelka’s plea for withdrawal from the panel’s future proceedings due to ‘‘various constraints’’ but rejected its request for taking the document on record after Sorabjee took strong exception to the language used in it. ‘‘Ask them to put this (paper) in the form of an affidavit as the language used in it is very offending,’’ Sorabjee said.