Coffin scam: Fernandes wants apology from Cong

With his name not figuring in the Central Bureau of Investigation chargesheet in the coffin scam, former defence minister George Fernandes on Monday demanded an apology from the Congress for alleging his involvement in the 2002 case.

"I needed no 'clean chit' from the CBI to know that the aluminium casket purchase issue had never even come to my table during my tenure as defence minister, let alone my drinking the blood of martyrs, as the Congress accused me of doing," the Janata Dal-United leader said in a press statement in New Delhi.

Fernandes had come under the scanner following allegations that poor quality aluminium caskets were bought from the United States at "exorbitant rates" to transport bodies of Kargil martyrs.

The CBI filed a chargesheet in the scam on August 19 against four persons, including two retired army officials and one serving officer, but did not name the ex-minister.

Accusing the Congress of "demoralising" the troops by launching a "false political attack" on him, Fernandes said, "Can we expect even a squeak of an apology?"