IANS/New Delhi

Confirming that he had quit, Raval said he has already sent his resignation letter but declined to dwell on the reasons for taking the step.

“You know that I don’t speak on such matters,” Raval said.

On Monday, Raval had accused Vahanvati of influencing the CBI probe into the allocation of coal blocks.

Raval is piqued that the entire blame for misleading the Supreme Court that the political executive had not vetted the investigating agency’s status report has been laid at his doorstep and that Vahanvati, who too was in the loop, got away unscathed.

Raval, in his April 29 letter to Vahanvati, had sought to remind him that his stand before the court on March 12 that the contents of the status report were not known to him was not correct.

“...while replying to the queries on 12 March as to what was contained in the status report, you had deemed it appropriate to take a stand that the contents of the status report were not known to you, which fact you knew to be incorrect,” Raval’s letter read.

“On account of your statement (not aware of the content of March 8 status report of CBI), I felt embarrassed and was forced to take a stand in the court consistent with your submission made as Attorney General for India that the contents of the status report were not known to you and that they were not shared with the government,” Raval said in his letter, explaining the predicament the attorney general had placed him in court.

Raval further said: “The trigger point of this letter is the remark made by you to me, on Friday 26th April, 2013 inside the gentleman’s cloakroom of the second floor, when you asked me ‘Harin, why are you angry with me’ and I politely replied to you. You further remarked that ‘You did not contradict me in court’. Sir, you are aware that on the contrary, the truth is otherwise. It was I who did not contradict you in the court.”

External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said Raval should have “talked it out” with Vahanvati instead of writing the letter.

“If I would be advising the deputy (Rawal), I would have said if you have differences of opinion, perception or you believe you haven’t got support you deserved, then you are two professionals working together. Talk it out,” Khurshid told NDTV news channel.

“I am not quite sure it was the best thing to do, not only to write a letter but also put it out in the media. I think they are two top professionals and it really doesn’t behove top professionals to be settling what could be egos or could be genuine differences of opinion,” said Khurshid, a former law minister.

“Great minds can disagree,” he said.

Asked about the attorney general’s role in the coal blocks allocations issue, Khurshid said: “I reserve my judgment about what the attorney general of the country can do. The AG is the law officer of the court and not of the government.”

“I believe that there can be autonomy and accountability and the courts can insist that certain arms of the government can be at some distance,” he said.

The minister said there should not be interference in the autonomous performance of duties that are expected to be done by the CBI or any other agency with or without court supervision.