SC to hear Rafale verdict review plea in open court

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear in open court the petition filed by former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie with activist advocate Prashant Bhushan seeking recall of its December 14 judgment giving a clean chit to the NDA government in the Rafale deal.

The three petitioners had alleged the verdict contained "falsehood" and "substantial errors". A bench of CJI Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and K M Joseph considered the review petition in chamber and ordered its listing in open court, but did not give a date for hearing.

On December 15, the Centre had filed an application seeking correction of some parts in the judgment which said "report of the CAG has been examined by the Public Accounts Committee". The Centre had said it had shared the price details with the CAG, and that the CAG report was to be examined by the PAC as part of established procedure. The CAG has since given its report and termed the deal cheaper than the one negotiated by the UPA government.

The Centre had said the error crept into the December 14 judgment "perhaps on account of a misinterpretation of a couple of sentences in a note handed over to the SC in a sealed cover".

But Sinha, Shourie and Bhushan said this was not inadvertent or a simple error. "The SC erred in relying on a non-existent fact to render its judgment which is not an 'accidental slip' but rather a 'substantial error'," the trio said.

They said it was patently false on the part of the judgment to record that the CAG report was examined by the PAC when the CAG was yet to conclude its audit of the Rafale contract.