SC to pronounce verdict on Friday on pleas for probe into Rafale jet deal

Satya Prakash
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, December 13

The Supreme Court will on Friday pronounce its order on petitions seeking a court-monitored probe into the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France under an inter-government agreement.

A Bench of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice KM Joseph - which had reserved the predict on November 13 on the contentious issue - is scheduled to pronounce it at 10.30 am.

The Bench had heard arguments from counsel for the petitioners, including Prashant Bhushan, senior journalist Arun Shourie and Attorney General KK Venugopal, who had defended secrecy clause of the deal estimated to be of Rs 58,000 crore.

Alleging irregularities in the deal, petitioners ML Sharma, Prashant Bhushan, Vineet Dhanda and Sanjay Singh had demanded registration of an FIR and a court-monitored investigation into it.

For the first time four senior IAF officers - three Air Marshalls and an Air Vice Marshall - and Additional Secretary (Defence) had appeared in the top court to explain various aspects of a defence deal.

CJI Gogoi had asked several questions about previous acquisitions and which generation of aircraft IAF was using. Air Vice Marshall J Chalapathi had told the Bench that the last acquisition was Sukhoi-30 and before that Mirage Aircraft were bought in 1985. He had said while most of the countries were using 4th and 5th generation fighter planes, IAF was using 3rd or sub-4th generation (3.5) aircraft.

Venugopal had said the decision on types of aircraft and weapons needed to be procured was a matter for experts and could not be adjudicated upon by the judiciary. "Even Parliament has not been told about the complete cost of jets," he had said defending the non-disclosure clause of Rafale deal.

"The decision we need to take is whether to bring the fact on pricing in public domain or not," the bench said, adding discussion on price will be considered if it thought that it should come in the public domain.

Venugopal said though there was no sovereign guarantee, there was a letter of comfort issued by the French Government which was as good as a sovereign guarantee.

Following the court's October 31 order, the Centre had on submitted in a sealed cover the pricing details of 36 Rafale jets.

The process of acquisition had started in 2001 and India was to purchase 126 Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) but the contract negations reached a stalemate and Request for Proposal compliance was finally withdrawn in June 2015. During the protracted process India's adversaries modernised their combact capabilities, the AG submitted.

It was in this background that India signed an agreement with France in September 2016 for the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter aircraft in a fly-away condition as part of upgrading process of the Indian Air Force equipment. It has better deliverables, the AG said, adding norms prescribed under Defence Procurement Policy -2013 were followed.