Dec. 11: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today ruled out widening the scope of the Justice R.S. Pathak committee investigating allegations made against Natwar Singh and the Congress in the Volcker report on the Iraq oil-for-food scandal.

“There is no proposal to tinker with the notification,” Singh told reporters aboard the special aircraft taking him to Kuala Lumpur for the East Asia Summit.

On Thursday, the Congress had indicated that the scope of the inquiry into the UN-appointed Volcker committee findings may be broadened in the wake of allegations that a close associate of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was involved in oil deals with Saddam Hussein’s son Uday.

Senior party leader Ambika Soni had said: “So many parties have raised questions on the Volcker issue. The Justice Pathak committee is inquiring into who all were involved. The scope of inquiry may be broadened.”

The Prime Minister today said: “The government had nothing to hide on the Volcker issue and that there was a procedure being followed.”

He was reacting to Opposition demands that a joint parliamentary committee probe should be ordered into allegations that there were payoffs to senior Congress functionaries.

Singh said the Pathak inquiry report would be tabled in Parliament along with the action-taken report after they were finalised. He, however, did not spell out any time frame for the reports.

“Everything would become clear then,” he said. The Prime Minister’s statement comes on the back of finance minister P. Chidambaram’s assertion on Friday that there would be a “fair and impartial” probe by the Enforcement Directorate into the Volcker findings.

Chidambaram, too, had said the terms of reference of the inquiry could be widened if such a request was made by Justice Pathak himself.

Last week had seen uproarious scenes in Parliament with Opposition leaders demanding a parliamentary probe into the Iraqi oil deals.

The BJP had zeroed in on comments by the former Indian ambassador to Croatia, Anil Mathrani, that the Congress leadership was aware that former external affairs minister Natwar Singh’s son Jagat was a member of the party delegation that visited Iraq in 2001 and allegations that oil coupons could have been distributed then.