Law minister Ashwani Kumar on Friday won the Boscars, the Oscars for mouthing the year’s most boring lines. The award, though, was split between Kumar and prime minister Manmohan Singh after a controversy was sparked off by reports that Singh holds copyright for the line.

“I have done no wrong. Truth will prevail,” Kumar said in his Boscar-winning line after attending a meeting of the UPA, chaired by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, after the CBI submitted in supreme court that the agency had “shared” the status report on coal scam with Kumar and officials in PMO and coal ministry.

Kumar said the said line while reacting to opposition BJP’s demands for him to quit.

Sources said the UPA meeting discussed at length the source of the said line, with several members pointing out that Manmohan Singh could be credited with it, having uttered it a few dozen times, give or take a dozen or two.

On his part, Singh, sitting quietly in a corner, reiterated that he has done no wrong, and that truth will prevail. In an uncharacteristic adlib speech, he said, “The CBI has done no wrong. The truth will prevail there as well. The truth is that the CBI’s draft report (on coal block allocation scam) is just that — a draft — so it is daft to say either the law minister or some PMO officer had vetted it.

“All they did was to go over the language, style and placing of the words. That is not wrong.”

“We have done no wrong vetting,” he affirmed. The truth, he reportedly said, will finally prevail in the final draft.

According to sources, the CBI has been told that the report on the Coalgate scam should not have any error, having had the fortune of being vetted by so many. But a senior Congress leader said errors might creep in since what Ashwani Kumar and the PMO officials were shown was the draft report. “Just as there’s many a slip between the cup and the lip, there’s also many a lip between the cup and the slip,” the Congress leader said, sounding suitably vague following the meeting.

Asked about the reported copyright issue kicking off a soup in the Boscars cup as it reaches his lip, the law minister said, “I have done no wrong. Truth will prevail.”

Asked about the minister’s lip zeroing in on the cup, and whether he feels he is a better candidate for the award, the prime minister said, “I have done no wrong. Truth will prevail.”

Main opposition BJP, meanwhile, reiterated its demand for both the PM’s and the law minister’s resignation, for the 279th and 11th time, respectively, saying both are misusing their offices by saying they did no wrong and that truth will prevail.

(Barring the CBI report, coalgate scam and Ashwani Kumar's quote, all developments are imaginary.)