SC verdict today on pleas to review Rafale ruling

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court will give its verdict on Wednesday whether to entertain petitions seeking review of its December 14 judgment giving a clean chit to the NDA government in the purchase of 36 fully-loaded Rafale jets from Dassault under an Indo-French inter-governmental agreement.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan and former Union ministers Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha had sought review of the judgment alleging massive irregularities and favouritism in awarding the offset deal to a defence company owned by Anil Ambani. However, the Centre had objected to the review petition attaching sensitive defence documents while alleging that these were unauthorisedly photocopied and claiming privilege over it.

On March 14, an SC bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and K M Joseph had reserved its verdict on the preliminary objection of the Union government. If the SC rejects the Centre’s claim of privilege over the documents, then it will go ahead and examine the contents of the review petitions, which could give additional ammunition to the opposition to attack the Narendra Modi government during the election campaign.

The Modi government had told the SC that the prime reason for keeping the price of Rafale aircraft a secret was to avoid other countries, which too had bought Rafale jets, from questioning France why these were sold cheaper to India.

Attorney general K K Venugopal had said, “The same Rafale is given to other countries. If the price of Rafale jets is revealed, they will ask how France sold it cheaper to India. That is why the price is kept secret.” This was the first time the government said it got Rafale jets at a price cheaper than what Egypt and Qatar paid to acquire the fifth generation fighter jets for their air forces.

Venugopal said the Rafale jets were bought in a government-to-government deal and the price was kept secret. “Revealing the price would be a violation of the inter-governmental deal. That is the reason why the Comptroller and Auditor General redacted the pricing details from its report,” he said and cited that the CAG had certified that the Rafale jets were cheaper than the price at which the UPA government had negotiated earlier.

The AG, with solicitor general Tushar Mehta, had told the court that the documents attached with the review petitions compromised national security and could be inimical to friendly relations with foreign countries. He said right to information emanating from freedom of speech and expression guaranteed under Article 19 of the Constitution had in-built restrictions, including national security, defence and friendly relations with foreign countries. Hence, the petitioners could not have cited the documents relating to Rafale in their review pleas, he had said.