New Delhi, July 10 (IANS) It is "not a point of no return" for Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam even as he has offered to quit, sources close to the country's number two law officer said Sunday, after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asked him to wait.

The issue was still "uncertain" because Subramaniam's boss, Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily, was still in Bangalore and was expected to be in Delhi Monday, the sources said.

"Everything will depend on how the situation develops Monday when the law minister arrives," one of Subramaniam's close aides told IANS, requesting anonymity.

The prime minister has told Subramaniam to wait till further consultations with his cabinet colleagues, official sources said. Moily has also asked him to hold back his resignation.

Asked if the law officer would stick to his resignation, the aide said "nothing can be said right now".

Subramaniam offered to quit Saturday after feeling upset over union Communications Minister Kapil Sibal substituting him by senior counsel Rohington Nariman in the 2G scam case.

He sent the letter to Manmohan Singh's office because Moily was away.

Subramaniam told reporters Sunday that he had quit to protect the "dignity of the office". "I feel it was unfair," Subramaniam said about the appointment of Nariman by Sibal.

In his letter to Manmohan Singh, the sources said, Subramaniam has complained that Sibal didn't think it necessary to take him into the confidence before appointing Nariman.

He has also mentioned that he was personally asked by the prime minister to appear before the Supreme Court in the 2G matters but the minister chose to substitute him.

He has also thanked the government for his "splendid innings" as assistant solicitor general and then as the solicitor general.

"He feels that the way things have been done, the minister has slighted him by appointing another senior counsel in his place without even consulting him or taking him into the confidence," the aide said.

Meanwhile, Subramaniam met President Pratibha Patil Sunday. "But the meeting had nothing to with the resignation. He went there on account of an earlier appointment as a courtesy call," the aide said.

Attorney General Goolam Vahanvati, the number one law officer, and the solicitor general are reportedly not on the best of terms.

A reflection of their not-so-warm relationship was evident when in the course of the hearing of a matter, Subramaniam referred to a newspaper report about the irritations in the relations between the two and presenting him in dim light.

Though the appointment of Nariman by Sibal appears to have precipitated Subramaniam's resignation, sources said his troubled relations with the attorney general had led to the unsavoury situation.

The sources said that though the case of former central vigilance commissioner P.J. Thomas was "entirely dealt with by Vahanvati" but the impression was carried to the powers that be that Subramaniam authored the government's defence on the CVC. Thomas' appointment as the CVC was set aside by the apex court.

Besides, Subramaniam was aggrieved that he was being denied briefs by the attorney general, sources said.

The sources close to Subramaniam said that to top it all, stories were being selectively leaked to the media projecting him in poor light.

Sibal opting for Nariman to represent him before the apex court in matters relating to the 2G scam is seen as an expression of no-confidence in Subramaniam.

Nariman would represent Sibal before an apex court bench of Justice G.S. Singhvi and Justice Asok Kumar Ganguly in the wake of Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) filing an affidavit alleging that the minister had favoured a service provider which was in trouble in the 2G imbroglio.

The decision to engage Nariman came in the backdrop of the indictment of the central government and its agencies in the apex court verdicts in the black money and Salwa Judum cases last week.

In both the cases the apex court had taken a dim view of the central government's inaptitude in tracking the source of huge black money stashed away outside the country and recovering the same, and the constitutional validity of it supporting the arming of ill-trained and unqualified special police officers engaged in counter-insurgency operations.

The court's comments in these two cases and also in 2G matter was seen as Subramaniam's failure in arguing the central government's case.

The apex court verdict in these two cases and in the 2G case came at a time when on the political front the government was under attack over several scams involving corrupt dealings and the onslaught of the civil society activists led by Anna Hazare.