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SC dismisses pleas to review Rafale ruling, raps Rahul
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- A three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi, on 14th Nov dismissed petitions seeking a review of its December 14, 2018 judgment upholding the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter aircraft
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- The Judgement:
(1) “The endeavour of the petitioners was to construe themselves as an appellate authority to determine each aspect of the Rafale purchase… We cannot lose sight of the fact that we are dealing with a contract for aircraft pending before different governments for quite some time. The necessity for those aircraft has never been in dispute... This court did not consider it appropriate to embark on a roving and fishing enquiry,”
(2) The Bench also closed a criminal contempt petition filed by BJP against Congress MP Rahul Gandhi for wrongly attributing the phrase chowkidar chor hai (watchman is a thief ) to the court.
(3) It said Mr. Gandhi’s statement was “unfortunate” and that a political leader of his stature should be “more careful in the future”. Mr. Gandhi has already apologised to the court.
(4) Issues of registering an FIR and a consequent probe by the CBI were decided on merits by the court in the judgment in December last year. There was no need to reopen them.
- Petitioners’ case
(1) Review petition alleged that “the government concealed crucial facts and misled SC into giving a favourable verdict”.
(2) It sought registration of an FIR and an investigation by the CBI into their complaint against the Rafale purchase.
(3) The Bench, agreed with the conclusions arrived in the main opinion but suggested that CBI should take prior sanction and register an FIR in case it found any material in the former Ministers’ complaint.
(4) The court allowed the government’s application for correction of certain factual portions of the December last judgment.
(5) The main opinion said these mistakes only pertained to the narration of facts and did not affect the rationale of the judgment.
(6) The two judges said the December 2018 judgment merely misconstrued between “what has been and what was to be done”.
(7) The verdict had misinterpreted facts on whether the government had shared the price details with the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG).
(8) Secondly, it had conveyed the notion that the CAG report on the Rafale purchase was already before Public Accounts Committee of Parliament, when it was not.
(9) Thirdly, the government had claimed that a redacted portion of the report was placed before Parliament and was in public domain.
- Pricing issue
Sources
The Hindu