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(This was first published as a blog on Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s official Facebook page.)
All the lies spoken on the Rafale deal has been exposed. The Supreme Court judgment is clear. Every word said against the government has been proved to be false. Every “fact” stated by the vested interests against the deal has been proved to be manufactured. Truth has once again established its primacy. The creators of falsehood will still persist with falsehood even at the cost of their own credibility. Only their captive constituencies will clap.
Rafale is a combat aircraft with its weaponry required to improve the strike ability of the Indian Airforce. India is geographically located in a sensitive region. It needs to protect itself. The need for such a weapon cannot be overstated. When such defence equipments are purchased obviously some suppliers loose out. The suppliers are clever people. They understand who the “vulnerables” in India are.
As a political opponent Rahul Gandhi’s opposition to the deal was a desperate attempt. It was the UPA government which had shortlisted the Rafale as it was technically the best and the cheapest.
PM Modi in an inter–governmental agreement struck a deal with the French government to further improve the terms and conditions including the prices on which the UPA had agreed.
Rahul’s opposition was obviously for three reasons :-
Rahul Gandhi got instant support from the “career nationalists” of Lutyens Delhi. The permanent PIL petitioners have always preferred disruptions over concerns of national security. They are willing to cooperate with any one who hurts India. A new job creation has taken place in Delhi with the “loud mouths on hire” and “subject experts” notwithstanding their conflict of interest. The disruptionists’ alliance was, therefore, quite wide.
The fundamental truth that Bofors was a choice both for quality and price by the UPA was forgotten.
The first lie was that only one man – the prime minister – decided the transaction and that no discussion with the Air Force, Defence Ministry or the Defence Acquisition Council was held. It was alleged that there was no Price Negotiation Committee, no Contract Negotiation Committee and no approval of the Cabinet Committee on Security. Every fact was false. There were dozens of meetings of Contract Negotiation Committee and Price Negotiation Committee. The bulk of the negotiations were done by the experts of the Air Force and the transaction was cleared by both the Defence Acquisition Council and the Cabinet Committee on Security.
The second major lie was that as against 500 million euros negotiated by the UPA, the NDA paid 1,600 million euros per aircraft. This accusation was ‘fiction writing’ and a poor one at that.
Since the UPA had negotiated the supply of 18 aircrafts, this gain of 9% and 20% would have further expanded with the supply of aircrafts after the first one since a more favourable escalation clause negotiated by the NDA Government would have further widened the price gap.
The third major lie that the judgment of the Court expressed was that the Government of India favoured a particular business house. The court noticed that the Government has nothing to do with the choice of the offset suppliers which was entirely done by Dassault.
After the court judgment, this debate should have come to an end. But neither lobbyists nor political opponents will ever give up their brief.
The opponents of Rafale had a choice of their forum to put their facts, they chose Supreme Court as their forum.
The court conducts a judicial review, it is a non-partisan, independent and a fair Constitutional authority. The court’s verdict is final. It can’t be reviewed by anyone except by the court itself. How can a Parliamentary Committee go into the correctness or otherwise to what the Court has said. Is a committee of politicians both legally and in terms of human resources capable of reviewing issues already decided by the Supreme Court? On areas such as procedure, offset suppliers and pricing, can a Parliamentary Committee take a different view of what the Court has said? Can the contract be breached, nation’s security be compromised and the pricing data be made available to Parliament / its Committee so that national interest is severely compromised with? This would be putting the price details of the weaponry in public domain. What was the experience of Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on the only occasion when they investigated a defence transaction?
The B. Shankaranand Committee in 1987-88 went into the Bofors transaction. Since Parliamentarians are always split on party lines, it came out with a finding that no kickbacks were paid and the monies paid to the middlemen were ‘winding up’ charges. At that time only Win Chaddha appeared to be a middlemen. But then others including Ottavio Quattrocchi, whose bank accounts got detected subsequently, were not entitled to any winding up charges.
Defence transactions go to the CAG for an audit review. CAG recommendations go to Parliament and are referred to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) whose reports are then placed before the Parliament. This was factually and accurately stated by the government before the court. The audit review of Rafale is pending before the CAG. All facts are shared with it.
When its report is out, it will go to the PAC. Notwithstanding this factually correct statement made, if an ambiguity has emerged in the court order, the correct course is for anyone to apply/mention before the court and have it corrected. The past practice is that if in a factual narration anything needs to be corrected, any litigant can move to the court for the same. This has been done. It must now be left to the wisdom of the court to state at which stage the CAG review is pending. The CAG review is not relevant to the final findings on procedure, pricing and offset suppliers. But bad losers never accept the truth. Having failed in multiple lies they have now started an innuendo about the J\judgment.
I am certain that the Congress party will prefer disruptions over discussion on Rafale during the current session of Parliament. On facts it lied. The judgment of the Supreme Court conclusively establishes the Congress party’s vulnerabilities in a discussion on defence transactions. It will be a great opportunity to remind the nation of the legacy of the Congress party and its defence acquisitions – a great opportunity indeed for some of us to speak.
(This has been republished from Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s blog on his official Facebook Page.)
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