Centre says release of Rafale documents can lead to grave repercussions, PMO monitoring deal can’t be called interference: The central government on Saturday filed an affidavit in response to the Supreme Court’s orders on petitions seeking review of its December 14 orders in which the court had given a clean chit to the Centre over Rafale jets row. The review petition was filed by former Union Minister Arun Shourie, Yashwant Sinha, and activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan.
Reports said that the Centre in the affidavit noted that the release of the documents related to the Rafale deal by the defence ministry could have “grave repercussions,” adding that it could also lead to the revelation of secrets relating to space, nuclear installations, strategic defence capabilities, operational deployment of forces etc.
In the affidavit, the Centre supported that decision taken by the apex court in its December 2019 judgement and claimed that the judgement could not be reviewed on the mere unsubstantiated media reports and/or part internal file notings deliberately projected in a selective manner. The affidavit was filed by the Joint Secretary and Acquisition Manager in the ministry, on behalf of the government.
In its affidavit, the Centre also argued that monitoring of the deal by the Prime Minister Office (PMO) could not be termed as interference or parallel negotiations.
Earlier on April 30, Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi had dismissed the demand of the Centre to give it an extension of the four weeks to file its response.
Apart from that, The Hindu had published a series of reports that claimed that the PMO was conducting “parallel negotiations”. A Defence Ministry note that was published said the “parallel parleys” had “weakened the negotiating position of MoD [Ministry of Defence] and Indian Negotiating Team.”
