CAG said Rafale deal saved on costs, Centre tells SC

NEW DELHI: Calling the petitioners’ claims over the Rafale jet pricing a figment of their imagination, the Centre in the Supreme Court said, “The report of the CAG does not support the main argument of the petitioners which has been perpetually repeated before the Supreme Court that the cost of each aircraft under the 36 Rafale contract is Rs 1,000 crore higher than what it would have been under the MMRCA (medium multi-role combat aircraft) bid.”
All pricing details, files, documents and records were made available to the CAG team, which worked out its own aligned cost after comparing each and every component of the 36-jet deal under the Indo-French inter-governmental agreement and the MMRCA bid for 126 Rafale jets, it said.
“The CAG observations do not support the main claim of the petitioners that each aircraft was bought at a price which is Rs 1,000 crore more than the MMRCA bid. In fact, the CAG has held that the 36 Rafale aircraft deal is 2.86% lower than the audited aligned price and in addition, there would be benefits on account of non-firm and fixed price. This itself negates the case of petitioners..,” the Centre said in its 39-page written submission.
The SC had reserved verdict on the petitions seeking review of its December 14 judgment giving clean chit to the government in the procurement of Rafale fighters. It had also reserved its verdict on a petition seeking contempt proceedings against Congress president Rahul Gandhi for making speeches claiming that the SC had endorsed his ‘chowkidar chor hai’ jibe against PM Narendra Modi in the Rafale deal. Rahul had tendered unconditional apology for linking the SC order to his political jibe.
The petitioners had also alleged, relying on a June 1, 2016 note put up by three of the seven-member Indian Negotiation Team, that the ‘benchmark price’ was raised from 5.2 billion euros to 8.2 billion euros. The Centre said the objections mentioned by the three members were discussed in the two more meetings of the INT on June 9-10 and July 18 of 2016.
It said, “The CAG has conclusively held that the benchmark price by the INT was unrealistic. Thus the allegations of the petitioners quoting main objection of the three INT members who had given a different opinion is not supported by the CAG report.”
Though the CAG has redacted the exact pricing details in case of 36 Rafale procurement, the clarity of conclusions of CAG on commercial aspects as brought out in its final report are quite evident, the submission said.