SC To Examine Classified Rafale Papers
By Correspondent / agencies / New Delhi
Supreme Court today dismissed preliminary objections raised by the Centre that documents on which it claimed ‘privilege’ cannot be relied upon to re-examine the verdict in the Rafale fighter jet deal.
The apex court said it would go ahead with the hearing of review petitions in the light of new documents cited by petitioners alleging wrong-doing in the Rafale deal. The petitions would be decided on merits.
The Government had submitted that the privileged documents were procured by petitioners in an illegal way and used to support their review petitions against the December 14, 2018 judgement of the apex court dismissing all pleas challenging procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France.
A bench, comprising Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and Justices S K Kaul and K M Joseph said that they are dismissing the preliminary objection raised by Union of India questioning the maintainability of the review petition.
The apex court said review petitions against its December 14 verdict dismissing all petitions against procurement of Rafale jets will be decided on merits. The court said it will fix a date for hearing review petitions.
Petitioner Prashant Bhushan had argued that “if a document is relevant in deciding a fact, how it was obtained becomes irrelevant”. Citing the US verdict on Pentagon papers leak, he said once documents are published, the government can no longer claim privilege.
N Ram, chairman of The Hindu Publishing Group, said that the documents were published in public interest, and the media group will fiercely protect its sources.
In December, the top court had dismissed petitions alleging that the government had gone for an overpriced deal for 36 Rafale fighter jets to help Anil Ambani’s rookie defence firm bag an offset contract with jet-maker Dassault Aviation. There was no reason to doubt the decision-making process of the government, the court had said.
The Hindu newspaper published reports which said the deal became more expensive for India because of France’s refusal to provide bank guarantees.
Reacting to Rafale judgement, CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechuri has said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government have compromised national security for corruption and cronyism in an important defence deal.
Mr Yechuri said, they tried to evade accountability, denied a Joint Parliamentary Committee, hide price from CAG, tried to first mislead, then stall any hearing in Supreme Court.
He said, Mr Modi and his minions have falsely claimed that they have a clean chit in the Rafale scam but the proofs have come tumbling out one after another.