Supreme Court Judgment on Rafale Deal ‘Flawed’: Prashant Bhushan

Advocate Prashant Bhushan on Friday, 14 December, termed Supreme Court’s decision to dismiss all petitions against the Rafale fighter jet deal as ‘flawed’.

Earlier in the day, the top court dismissed the petitions seeking a probe in the Rafale deal and said that there will be no court-monitored investigation. SC also said it did not find any irregularities in the procedure of the deal.

“The judgment does not deal with the issues raised by us, with the facts pointed out by us and with the prayers made by us,” Bhushan, a petitioner in the case, said.

“We were only seeking an investigation into the matter. The SC judgment proceeds as if we were seeking the cancellation of the Rafale deal.”

Prashant Bhushan, senior lawyer

“Not only that, the SC judgment relies and regurgitates all the facts given to them by the government, either by the short affidavit or by the sealed cover, which they gave to court and was not shown to us,” Bhushan said.

He added that the government has misled the Supreme Court on several important factual accounts. For instance, he said, government has submitted that the CAG has examined the price and given the report to PAC and which has been given in Parliament.

‘Govt Misled Supreme Court’

“This is totally false. I don’t understand how the government could have misled the court on such a vital and important thing which forms the basis of SC’s judgment,” Bhushan said.

Explaining another flaw in the judgment, he said, “The judgment says that they examined the Air Force Officer in the court and talked about the process followed in the deal as well as the pricing. However, the court has only asked them which was India’s last manufactured plane in India jet and whether this Rafale jet is a third or fourth generation jet.”

The court makes another factual blunder in the judgment, Bhushan pointed out.

“It says from that Dassault was in negotiation with the parent company of Anil Ambani’s Reliance from 2012 which is totally false. This company involved in the deal in question was Mukesh Ambani’s company, having nothing to do with new Anil Ambani’s company which was set up on the eve of this deal and with which the Dassault came into an agreement soon after,” Bhushan said.

Alleging procedural irregularities in the Rafale deal, petitioners had sought an independent probe into the case.

Former Bharatiya Janata Party leaders and Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie, Aam Aadmi Party leader Sanjay Singh, and lawyers ML Sharma, Vineet Dhanda were among the petitioners.