Supreme Court verdict on Rafale deal today: Live Update

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SC Rafale Verdict: Rahul Gandhi let off with a warning

The apex court had reserved the verdict on the deal in May this year

Thursday November 14, 2019 11:25 AM, ummid.com with inputs from Agencies

Supreme Court verdict on Rafale Deal: The Supreme Court of India Thursday closed the defamation case filed against former Congress president Rahul Gandhi for wrongly attributing his "chowkidar chor hai" remark in Rafale case against Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the top court.

A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi said the court accepted Rahul Gandhi's apology in the matter and warned him to be more careful about his future remarks.

The Supreme Court of India also dismissed petitions seeking a review of its judgment refusing a CBI investigation into the Rafale fighter jet deal with French firm Dassault Aviation.

11:15 am The Supreme Court of India Thursday dismissed petitions seeking a review of its judgment refusing a CBI investigation into the Rafale fighter jet deal with French firm Dassault Aviation.

The judgement has given Modi government a clean chit.

08:15 am The Supreme Court of India will pronounce today a judgement on the Rafale deal, which was made an election issue by the Opposition citing corruption. The apex court had reserved the verdict on the deal in May this year.

Former Union ministers, Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie, and activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan, who have filed the review petitions, contended before the top court that it should set aside December 14, 2018, verdict, which dismissed their plea for criminal investigation into the Rafale deal. Later, the apex court reserved verdict on a batch of petitions seeking review of its December 14 judgement.

Bhushan told the various aspects -- alleged suppression of material facts -- have been hidden from the court, and an FIR should be registered to undertake criminal investigations. He also pointed out a three-member Indian Negotiation Team (INT) had objected to the parallel negotiations undertaken by the PMO, and as a consequence, allegedly the deal became expensive.

Bhushan had argued that eight critical clauses, including the one on anti-corruption, were dropped on the deal, and also ignored the objection of three experts on pricing of the aircraft deal. "The Centre should place the entire file of the negotiations team before the court...for the deal to go through. The Centre also breached the ceiling price. The French government issued a letter of comfort, which was not of any comfort", argued Bhushan before the court.

Attorney General (AG) K.K. Venugopal however objected to the review petition and said the basic grounds for seeking review of the December verdict were similar to the main petition, which was not allowed by the apex court. The top law officer also rubbished the allegation of the petitioners that the Centre played a fraud on the court regarding the information on the deal.

"The petitioners are seeking review on the base of stolen documents...they committed theft by accessing incomplete file notings of the government departments," said the AG.

Venugopal representing the Centre argued before a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi that there was no "corruption" in the Rafale deal and that the government is bound to maintain secrecy on pricing, as per Inter-Government Agreement (IGA) signed between India and France.

The AG had insisted that the world over, defence deals are not examined in a court of law.

Shourie, who briefly argued, informed the court that it has been misled, and although the government has given all the documents regarding the deal to CAG, "why can't they share them with the court?" he asked.

Shourie also shared a document published on the Ministry of Home Affairs' website which mandates the government to share information on defence deals.

The AG argued that the document is old, and in accordance with IGA, which was signed in September 2016, the government has to oblige its terms regarding secrecy.

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