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In a new twist to the Tehelka expose, R K Jain, a key figure secretly taped by the portal in the fictitious defence deal, said statements made by him against Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha and others were "false and incorrect".
"All statements attributed against you (Sinha) and others made by me are false and incorrect and had no intention to defame or hurt you or anybody's feelings," Jain said in a letter to the finance minister.
Responding to a legal notice sent by Sinha's advocate, Abhay Prakash Sahay, Jain said he apologised for his "uncalled for, unsubstantiated and untrue claims that have caused great injury to your (Sinha's) reputation."
Sinha had sent the legal notice to Jain on March 16, after a daily had quoted the transcripts of the Tehelka tapes, in which Jain was alleged to have said that Sinha was not honest.
Jain had also claimed that it was at his instance that the finance minister had sanctioned a loan of Rs 30 crore to Jain's brother, for which a bribe was allegedly paid.
In his letter to Sinha, Jain said, "I would like to add that I have never met you (Sinha), nor do I know you in person, nor I have any access to you in anyway, leave apart getting any work done from you."
"I now realise my folly and I was deeply shocked to see the casual conversation becoming public," he said.
Jain said that in fact representatives of tehelka.com had met him posing as investors who were interested in investing in the country as also in supply.
"As they were making tall claims and offering proposals, I, in order to impress them, made tall claims too, which was not related to facts at all," he said.
This, he said he had done solely with a view to establish himself as a person of high contacts and had no intention to "malign" Sinha or any other person named therein.
"Since the practice of name-dropping, to my experience works wonders, I resorted to this without any intention of causing any harm or injury to anybody," he said.
"I now realise my folly and I was deeply shocked to see the casual conversation becoming public," Jain said.
Besides, he said greater damage had been done more by tehelka.com as they have widely publicised what he had casually stated in the privacy of a room and which was not meant to be publicised in the manner in which it had been done.
Also, he said, "They have publicised the matter in bits and pieces after heavy edition."
PTI
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