A cabinet minister sent an SMS to media contacts about the impending decision on the pay hike for MPs, even as the cabinet meeting was on. Now, the government has ordered an internal inquiry by a senior official of the Cabinet Secretariat to find the truth.

The leak has embarrassed the UPA II as the opposition not only did a 'mock parliament', but also stalled it effectively for a day.

Since parliament is in session, the government is cannot make any policy announcement outside, sources in PMO said, pointing out that no official announcement of the MPs' pay hike was made.

The probe was ordered since the decision's premature leakage led to an embarrassment to the government as it was raked up by the opposition members, forcing adjournment of the Lok Sabha, sources said. The government suspects that someone from inside is trying to destabilise it by making such unauthorised leaks, the sources added.

Meanwhile, Rajya Sabha chairman Hamid Ansari is understood to have ordered an inquiry into the mishandling of the parliamentary standing committee report on the nuclear liability bill and insertion of mysterious additions in the final report.

On noting that the word "and" clubbing two sub-clauses of Section 17 was not there in the draft approved by the committee on Tuesday, the vice-president wants to know who added it creating a massive controversy, with even the BJP supporting the bill threatened to vote against it.

Insiders say the word "and" has been added by hand in the approved draft and hence only a hand-writing expert would be able to tell who is author of this last-minute insertion before the report was tabled in parliament on Wednesday.

Once the report is finalised, it is to be signed by the chairman before its copies are made for tabling in the house and hence suspicion arises whether committee chairman T Subbirami Reddy, a Congress member of Rajya Sabha, made the addition.