New Delhi: On Wednesday, the Supreme Court is hearing petitions seeking a recall and review of its December 14 judgment which had given a clean chit to the Narendra Modi government on the acquisition of 36 Rafale jet fighters have started. Meanwhile, NDA lawyer has alleged that the documents were stolen from the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
On December 14, the top court quashed four petitions filed by former NDA ministers like Yashwant Sinha, journalist-turned-politician Arun Shourie and activist-lawyer Prashant Bhushan. Rejecting the petition, which had sought a court-monitored probe into the purchase of 36 Rafale jets from Dassault Aviation at a cost of Rs 59,000 crore, the SC said that the procurement process was not in doubt and added that it cannot go into the question of pricing and the choice of offset Indian partner by Dassault Aviation, IANS reported.
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Rejecting the petition, the SC observed that there was no reason to doubt the Centre’s decision making.
However, referring to the CAG’s audit of the deal, the petitioners had stressed that at the time of the SC verdict, no such CAG report existed. The petitioners had also alleged that the government had knowingly misled the court by relying on non-existent facts and had asked the court to register FIRs against officials.
In continuation of it quoting a newspaper report which had alleged that the price of the fighter jet escalated due to ‘no bank guarantees’, the Congress today slammed the PM and tweeted: “Do we need any more proof that Modi undermined our national interest to help his friend Anil Ambani? By removing the bank guarantee clause Modi ensured India overpaid for the Rafale jets & cost the average tax payer millions.”
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