Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad Tuesday expressed shock over former army chief V.K. Singh's claim that ministers in Jammu and Kashmir have been receiving money from the army's secret funds.
Terming it as an "irresponsible" statement, Azad, who is a former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, said: "I was shocked to know this, because I have been myself the chief minister."
"I have no knowledge about this and I am as curious as you are to know about the names of the persons who were being paid and who are being paid," he told reporters on the sidelines of a function here.
"If I never came to know, how would the present or earlier chief minister know this," he said.
Gen. (retd.) V.K. Singh said on a TV channel that the army paid Jammu and Kashmir ministers "as part of the stabilising factor".