New Delhi: Authorities are contemplating launching a probe into the issue of former Defence Minister George Fernandes flaunting an internal report of the Army on the Kargil conflict, which they claimed was a classified secret document.

This follows Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee taking strong exception to Fernandes using the report to buttress his point to reporters yesterday (Jun 10, 2004) after Mukherjee had made a statement in Parliament on the conflict.

Official sources expressed surprise how a minister could get hold of the classified papers after the announcement of General Elections and directive of the Cabinet Secretary that no fresh document be shown to any minister.

Mukherjee had said the report was not a souvenir but a classified document, which should have been returned once he ceased to be a minister.

Seeking to dispel an impression that Mukherjee had given a clean chit to the national democratic Alliance (NDA) Government on deployment of Air Force in the conflict, the sources said he had referred to a period of 18 days taken by the Cabinet Committee on Security to use the Air Force.

They said that it had to be seen how the Pakistani troops had positioned themselves atop the high peaks of the Kargil sector, some of which had been vacated by the Army whether it was due to failure of intelligence or lack of vigilance.