Supreme Court sought details of the steps taken during the decision-making process leading up to the award of the contract to Dassault Aviation but the court clarified that it was not seeking any information related to pricing or suitability of the jets.
Seeks information from Centre by Oct.29; further hearing on Oct. 31
The order came from a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi on a batch of PILs, including the one seeking directions to the Centre to file in “sealed cover” the details of the agreement India has entered into with France for buying 36 Rafale Fighter Jets.
Appearing for Centre, Attorney General K K Venugopal sought dismissal of the petitions saying they were “intended to achieve political gains in the bitter fight between Opposition and ruling party”.
Earlier, the top court had adjourned to October 10 the hearing on the plea filed by lawyer M L Sharma seeking a stay on the Rafale fighter jet deal between India and France.
A similar plea was filed in the apex court in March this year by Congress leader Tehseen S Poonawalla, seeking an independent probe into the Rafale deal and disclosure of the cost involved in the deal before Parliament. However, the plea is yet to be listed for hearing. Poonawala had sought a direction against the Centre on why the Union Cabinet’s approval was not sought as part of the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) before signing the procurement deal with France on September 23, 2016.
AAP Rajya Sabha lawmaker Sanjay Singh had also moved the apex court through his lawyer, Dheeraj Kumar Singh, by filing a separate petition on the defence deal.
The Rafale deal is a defence agreement signed between the governments of India and France for the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter aircrafts in a fly-away condition as a part of the upgrading process of Indian Air Force equipment.
The Rafale fighter is a twin-engine Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) manufactured by French aerospace company Dassault Aviation.
Indian Air Force had advanced a proposal to buy 126 fighter aircraft in August 2007 and floated a tender. Following this, an invitation was sent to various aviation companies to participate in the bidding process.
