Jaitley on Jayanthi:

"During UPA's regime, the growth rate was radically going down and one of the prime reasons for that was delay in approvals being granted to projects," the finance minister said.

He said Natarajan's letter "conclusively establishes" that it was not the statutory or mandatory considerations which weighed with the ruling party.

"But what weighed with them was the whims of political leaders of the party as to who is to be granted environmental permission and who is not to be granted an environmental permission," the Finance Minister said.

In a scenario where whims overtake legal requirements, it becomes a textbook case of "crony capitalism, which the UPA was practising," he said.

Attacking the UPA regime further, Jaitley said that it was a practitioner of a "sadistic" economy which was vindictive in nature, wanting to teach some people a lesson while wanting to favour some others.

"This obviously had to be for corrupt and collateral reasons," he charged.