Notwithstanding UPA's presidential candidate Pranab Mukherjee defeating the "office-of-profit" objection before returning office Vivek K Agnihotri on Tuesday, he may face music in the Supreme Court if his election is challenged.

The defeated candidate or any 20 MPs/MLAs can file the election petition and challenge Mukherjee's claim that he had resigned on June 20, ahead of filing the nomination papers on June 28, but the Supreme Court may call records of the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) to verify if his resignation is not back-dated to escape the "office of profit" charge.

As a senior BJP leader points out, you can give a back-dated resignation but then the 81-year-old academic institute of Kolkata is supposed to have informed all concerned about Mukherjee relinquishing the post of the chairman through emails and posts to various representatives on its council and the truth will be nailed if none were sent out in the last 12 days since his claimed resignation.

A check on the website <http://www.isical.ac.in/officebearers.php> of the institute surprisingly shows Mukherjee as its chairman as late as 6 pm on July 2. The institute can not claim that the website had not been updated since his resignation as there are announcements on it that are post-June 20. His name was, however, dropped from the website when checked just before finishing this report at 6.05 PM. The Delhi-based Prof. M.G.K. Menon is President of the institute.