Ajit Doval Illegally Negotiated in Rafale Deal: Prashant Bhushan

According to a note tweeted by Prashant Bhushan, NSA illegally negotiated with France about Rafale Deal.

Senior advocate Prashant Bhushan tweeted Defence Ministry documents on Rafale deal on Thursday, 15 November, stating the National Security Advisor (NSA), Ajit Doval, was illegally negotiating with France, whereas, only the Internal Negotiating Team (INT) was supposed to do it.

Law ministry note shows that the NSA unauthorizedly interfered in the Rafale negotiations and facilitated the acceptance of a mere "letter of comfort" from the French government in place of a sovereign guarantee in this so called 'government to government deal' of Modi govt! pic.twitter.com/brWpIg3joF

— Prashant Bhushan (@pbhushan1) November 15, 2018

Bhushan tweeted a note of the Air Acquisition Wing of the Defence Ministry of 23 August, 2016, a day before inter-government agreement with France was approved by the Modi-led Cabinet Committee on Security.

According to the note, NSA Ajit Doval negotiated with the French side about the Rafale deal on 12 and 13 January 2016 in Paris.

Amid all the doubts around Rafale deal, Modi government’s various ministers have claimed that the deal negotiation was only handled by INT, headed by the Deputy Chief of the Indian Air Force.

According to News Central 24x7, legally, NSA was not a member of CCS in the year 2016, neither anyone outside INT was allowed to take part in negotiation. The defence minister who was not a member of INT, was only supposed to provide opinions when the INT referred a matter to the Defence Acquisition Committee chaired by him.

(With inputs from News Central 24x7.)