Former Union Ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie with senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan jointly moved the Supreme Court on Wednesday for a CBI investigation into the Rafale deal with the apex court monitoring the probe.
The petitioners alleged that they had collected some evidence and filed a complaint with the CBI for registering an FIR to investigate a case of criminal misconduct by high-ranking public servants.
“However, it is clear that there is enormous pressure on the CBI because of the nature of the persons involved not to undertake this investigation. Till date not even an FIR has been registered in the matter,” the petition said.
The petitioners contended that tenders were issued by the Ministry of Defence in 2007 for the purchase of 126 fighter aircraft and it was specified in the Request for Proposal that 18 of these would be purchased from abroad in a ‘fly-away’ condition.
The remaining 108 would be manufactured in India in the factory of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) with transfer of technology from the foreign vendor.