In hindsight, Sushilkumar Shinde may have stated the truth late last year when he said even prime minister Manmohan Singh did not know about Ajmal Kasab’s hanging. “The prime minister and others got to know from television this morning,” the union home minister had said after the 26/11 Mumbai attack convict’s secret hanging early on the morning of November 21 last year.

In hindsight, it appears the prime minister learns about most things either from the newspapers the following morning or he follows the news channels, possibly late in the night. A third alternative isn’t impossible either: his juniors and cabinet colleagues do not bother to tell him most of the things.

Or how is it that he does not know so many things so often?

Two cases in point:

According to PTI, solicitor general Mohan Parasaran has told the agency that prime minister Singh met the government’s law officers on April 29. That was a day before the supreme court was to take up the matter regarding CBI director Ranjit Sinha’s affidavit to the top court, stating that the probe agency had shared the draft report of the coal blocks allocation scam (or coalgate) investigations with law minister Ashwani Kumar and officers of the coal ministry and that of the prime minister’s office.

What’s revealing is, Parasaran says Singh was not aware of the meeting between Ashwani Kumar, attorney general GE Vahanvati and then additional solicitor general Harin Raval, in which the draft report of the CBI probe was shared with the political executive (read it here).

“We respect the autonomy of the CBI and we have not interfered with the (coal allocation scam) probe,” the PM reportedly told his law officers.

That’s very cool, as they say in this weather — cool and swell, for Shinde let us know long ago that the prime minister is not intimated about even the biggest of state actions by his juniors, and the PM himself has let us know on umpteen occasions that he is uber-hygienic about honesty, and would thus might not advocate interfering with a probe.

But hang on a minute, is the country’s solicitor general indicating that the country’s prime minister was “not aware” that the draft report was shared even with an officer in his own office?

Here’s what CBI chief Ranjit Sinha’s affidavit to the apex court says: "I submit that the draft of the same (status report) was shared with law minister as desired by him prior to its submission before the supreme court. Besides the political executive, it was also shared with one joint secretary level officer each of prime minister’s office and ministry of coal as desired by them,” the affidavit said.

Sinha tells the court — in a sworn affidavit, no less — that the “joint secretary level officer” “desired” to see the draft but the PM, according to Parasaran, was “not aware” what his office’s officer — and not exactly a junior clerical staff — wanted to see.

Cool, as they would say in this searing weather.

Earlier, on April 27, prime minister Singh made a gallant comment to reporters when asked about the attack on Sarabjit Singh in a Pakistani jail: “It is very sad. I think in the jail, I think some inmates attacked him. I think that is very sad.”

It was in the afternoon when Singh let us all know his sadness. That was nearly 24 hours since the TV channels had raised the decibel level a few notches over the attack, and half a day since the newspapers had front-paged the news. And the prime minister wasn’t still sure!

He “thought” the attack took place at all, he “thought” it was the handiwork of some jail inmates, and he also “thought” it was sad. Fortunately no reporter thought of checking with Singh whether he thought Sarabjit was in jail in the first place.

But with the help of hindsight, as offered by Mr Foot-in-Mouth Shinde, the nation now knows the problem does not lie with the PM. He was, in all likelihood, not aware about it since he was not told about it.