Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, on Tuesday, hit back at the Congress, accusing it of manipulating the courts in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case.

Intervening during the debate on the motion of thanks to the President for his address to both Houses of Parliament, Jaitley told the Rajya Sabha that the Congress has compromised with the national security of the country and was intolerant of a political party and a political leader, obliquely referring to his own party, the BJP and to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He said an affidavit submitted before the court was changed with this he FBI, you removed that part in the affidavit, which referred to the LeT."

Questioning the intent of the Congress party and then home minister Shivraj Patil, Jaitley alleged that the government manipulated facts to fix some political leader (Narendra Modi)."No charge sheet was filed for 90 days after the arrest was made, so that the accused could get bail and then become government-approvers," said Jaitley. He made the statement without naming Prime Minister Modi, who was the Chief Minister of Gujarat when the Ishrat Jahan and three others were killed in an encounter by the intelligence agency.

Responding to the attack on the JNU row and making a reference to Kanhiya Kumar, Jaitley clarified that the government has nothing against a particular student, but asserted that free speech cannot be allowed to be used to advocate the break-up of the country. "I expect mainstream political parties like Congress to be in the forefront of being against these people. Please don't do anything that lends respectability to such people," he said.