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Did Nothing Wrong: Manmohan Responds to News18 Expose on Mallya Mails

CNN-News18

First published: January 30, 2017, 5:46 PM IST | Updated: 7 mins ago

Former PM Manmohan Singh and former finance minister P Chidambaram address the media on Monday.

New Delhi: Responding to a News18 expose on Mallya Mails, former prime minister Manmohan Singh on Monday said he did “nothing wrong”.

Releasing a report on the state of the economy in the presence of former finance minister P Chidambaram, Manmohan said, “I did nothing wrong against the law of the land.”

Documents accessed by CNN-News18 had revealed that the ex-PM may have taken a special interest to try and keep afloat Vijay Mallya’s ailing Kingfisher Airlines.

ALSO READ | Mallya Mails: Ex-PM Manmohan Illegally Helped Kingfisher, Alleges BJP

In the series of emails, Mallya thanked the former PM for sparing the time to talk to him and also acknowledged that former principal secretary in the PMO TKA Nair spoke to the ministries concerned — civil aviation and petroleum —to help the airliner.

“All PMs and other ministers in any government receive representations from various leaders of industry… In normal course, we pass it on to concerned authorities… What I have done was with full satisfaction that we were not doing anything against the law of the land,” Manmohan said.

ALSO READ | Economy in Bad Shape, NDA Exaggerating Numbers, Says Congress

He was responding to a question by CNN-News18.

Responding to the question, Chidambaram said: “The loans were given in 2009. I was not the Finance Minister then. The letter you are referring to is a letter written in 2013… The letter talks about NOC of preferential allotments of shares.”