Supreme court reserves order on Rafale review petitions

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday reserved verdict on petitions seeking review of its December 14 Rafale judgment but not before repeatedly asking the Centre why the CBI did not register an FIR when the review petitioners filed a complaint prima facie disclosing a cognisable offence even as the Centre said no such case was made out.
Justice K M Joseph, who was part of the bench led by CJI Ranjan Gogoi and also comprising Justice Sanjay K Kaul, repeatedly asked why the CBI did not follow the SC's Lalita Kumari judgment mandating investigating agencies to register FIR whenever a complaint disclosed a cognisable offence.
"We are bound by the five-judge bench Lalita Kumari judgment," Justice Joseph said. A combative attorney general K K Venugopal said, "There has to be a prima facie case. (Advocate Prashant) Bhushan has no case that's why he is asking for the entire Rafale deal files to build a prima facie case. Rafale deal is not a contract for building a highway or a dam for the court to inquire about cost component of each part of the deal.
"The CAG has examined it threadbare and came up with a finding that the deal is 2.86% cheaper than the deal that was being negotiated with Dassault by the UPA government from 2007-2015."
Justice Joseph then asked "what about transfer of technology?".
Venugopal said, "Should the Supreme Court decide whether there should be transfer of technology or not in a defence deal under inter-governmental agreement? Dassault said that even if transfer of technology happened and HAL manufactured Rafale jets, it would not guarantee HAL produced fighter jets. Who will guarantee the safety of pilots and all of us?"