Friday, December 2 2005 19:22 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The Volcker report controversy took a new turn today (Dec 2, 2005) with a statement by India's Ambassador to Croatia, Aniel Matherani, that Natwar Singh had been given oil vouchers by Saddam Hussien's regime in Iraq for his 'personal services', a claim that caused an uproar in Parliament functioning, which was disrupted by a vociferous Opposition.

Natwar, who was stripped off the External Affairs portfolio after being named in the UN report as a beneficiary in the Iraqi oil-for-food scam, reacted sharply to Matherani's charge terming it totally 'false' and 'malicious' and said he was contemplating legal action.

Matherani, a former Secretary of the Congress Foreign Affairs Cell, who accompanied Natwar to Baghdad as part of a party delegation in January 2001, said the two oil voucher allottees, Singh and the Congress party, whose names figured in the Volcker report were 'exactly the same.'

"One has been given to him (Natwar) by name and the other is in the name of the Congress Party," he said in a telephonic interview to India Today's Associate Editor Saurabh Shukla.

Asked if the vouchers did not go to the Congress but to Natwar, Matherani was quoted as having said, "Naturally, in my view both are exactly the same."