The Supreme Court on April 10, dismissed the Centre’s preliminary objections to the Rafale review petitions and allowed admissibility of three “classified” documents as evidence in re-examining the Rafale order.
The Supreme Court on April 10, dismissed the Centre’s preliminary objections to the Rafale review petitions and allowed admissibility of three “classified” documents as evidence in re-examining the Rafale order.
“Review petitions against its December 14 verdict dismissing all petitions against procurement of Rafale jets will be decided on merits. The court will now fix the date for hearing review petitions on Rafale”, the apex court said.
The €7.87-billion Rafale deal between India and France involved major and unprecedented concessions from the Indian government, with critical provisions for anti-corruption penalties and making payments through an escrow account dropped days before the signing of the inter-governmental agreement (IGA). This has significant political implications for the Narendra Modi government which has claimed that eliminating corruption is a major plank of its agenda for governance and promised action against alleged corruption in defence deals struck during the United Progressive Alliance Government.
The hearings were ongoing in SC for longer time period. During hearings that concluded on March 14, Attorney General KK Venugopal had argued that certain documents which the petitioners were trying to rely on were confidential and had been “stolen” from the Defence Ministry.
He also said the petitioners and journalists who had used these documents had violated the Official Secrets Act. After a bench of judges questioned this, Venugopal pointed out that official government records not made public cannot be admitted as evidence in court without the permission of a relevant government officer.
In light of this, the judges will now be considering only the limited question of admissibility of the ‘secret’ documents. This could have an impact on the review process, since the documents included damning new information revealed by The Hindu’s N Ram and other journalists.