On the subject of insulating officials against political interference, the Supreme Court had cited the terms of reference of the Independent Review Committee (IRC). The IRC, comprising former Cabinet Secretary B G Deshmukh; then Principal Secretary to the PM, N N Vohra and then CVC S V Giri, had been set up by the then Government as a response to the Supreme Court's indictment in the hawala case.

The crucial term of reference, which was included in the hawala ruling (Para 18), called for ensuring that: ``Offences alleged to have been committed by any person, particularly those in positions of higher authority are registered, investigated and prosecutedfairly and expeditiously, ensuring against, inter alia, external pressure, arbitrary withdrawals or transfers of personnel etc., and ensuring adequate protection to the functionaries concerned to effectively discharge their duties and responsibilities.''

The present Government quoted this entire paragraph but dropped the following phrase: or transfers of personnel etc, and ensuring adequate protection to. And to make matters worse, the Government went on to say in the same paragraph of its affidavit (Page 6, Para 12): ``It is submitted that the words `transfer of persons etc' do not form part of the terms of the reference of the IRC issued by the Government.'' The affidavit is signed by Shankar Aggarwal, Director in the Department of Personnel and Training.

This is a direct contradiction of what the Jain hawala ruling said on the terms of reference and therefore prompted the court to observe that the Government was ``misleading'' the court by ``completely rewriting'' the judgment.

Amicus curiaeAnil Divan had taken this section of the affidavit to argue that the transfer violated the IRC recommendations and the terms of reference and, therefore, of the spirit of the Supreme Court's hawala judgment.

``The aforesaid judgment (hawala) also notices how the central government itself took note of these issues (insulating officers) by appointing the Vohra Committee and the IRC consisting of B.G Deshmukh, N.N. Vohra and S.V. Giri,'' Divan had said.

But the government in its affidavit denied violating the terms of reference and said that Divan's submission was at ``variance'' with what was mentioned in the terms of reference.

It was only after Divan reproduced the original office memorandum containing the IRC's terms of reference that the government admitted its error leading the bench to observe: ``It is an error... a tremendous error. It goes to show with what diligence the affidavit was prepared in such an important matter.''

``The relevant words of the judgment are omitted. How can you do so. Ifthis is not an attempt to mislead the court, then what is it? The sentence is completely re-written and that too by the government?,'' the Bench observed.