In a big relief to the Narendra Modi government, the Supreme Court today gave clean chit to the government by dismissing all pleas to probe the Rafale fighter jet deal, which was used as a major poll plank by the opposition parties in the recent Assembly polls. The judgement comes as a major vindication for Prime Minister Narendra Modi who was personally accused of corruption by the Opposition Congress.
The apex court said that detailed scrutiny is not required in the Rafale fighter jet deal. While reading the judgement Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi said that the Court is satisfied with the decision-making process and there is no occasion to doubt the process of the deal.
A three judge bench led by CJ Ranjan Gogoi said that the court lacked the technical expertise to examine issues such as pricing and the choice of offset partners. The CJI also cited national security concerns to say that it could not step into issue such as defence contracts and procurements.
The court said nobody questioned the procurement of Rafale jets when deal was finalised in September 2016.
It added that questions were raised on the jet deal only after former French president Francois Hollande came out with the statement. This cannot be the basis of judicial review, it said.
The court said it cannot compel the government to procure 126 or 36 fighter jets. That depends on its decision.
The apex court bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice KM Joseph had reserved the verdict on November 14. While reserving the verdict, the apex court had said that the pricing details of Rafale jets could only be discussed after it decides on whether to make it public.
The observation by an apex court bench had came after the government refused to publicly divulge pricing details of the deal, saying it would give advantage to India’s enemies. The deal is estimated to be about Rs 58,000 crore (about USD 8 billion).
The Centre had defended the deal to procure 36 Rafale fighter jets in a ready-to-fly condition while it admitted that there was “no sovereign guarantee from France (government), but there is a letter of comfort…”
While hearing a bunch of pleas alleging criminality in Rafale deal and seeking court-monitored probe into it, the apex court had asked wide-ranging questions from the government on issues including lack of sovereign guarantee from the French government, selection of Indian offset partner by the Dassault Aviation and need of entering into Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) with France.
The petitioner counsel Prashant Bhushan and former Union Minister Arun Shourie had questioned the circumventing of the procedure for aborting the earlier process for procuring 126 fighter jets in favour of procuring 36 aircraft in ready-to-fly condition and unloading HAL as an offset partner.
The four petitions seeking probe into the deal were filed by Prashant Bhushan, Arun Shourie, former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha, advocates M.L.Sharma and Vineet Dhanda, and AAP lawmaker in Parliament Sanjay Singh.
The Centre had defended the deal on the grounds of “urgent requirement” of national security and had justified the scrapping of the earlier deal for 126 aircraft as it was taking long to reach conclusion.
Vehemently defending non-disclosure of price publicly, Attorney General K K Venugopal, appearing for Centre had said that the cost of a bare Rafale jet as per 2016 exchange rate was Rs 670 crore and the disclosure of price of a “fully loaded” aircraft would give an “advantage to the adversaries”.
The court during the hearing on the bunch of pleas had also interacted senior Indian Air Force (IAF) officers and enquired about the requirements of the force.
The IAF officers had emphasised in the apex court the need for induction of ‘four plus or fifth’ generation fighter aircraft like Rafale, which have niche stealth technology and enhanced electronic warfare capabilities.
The Rafale fighter is a twin-engine Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) manufactured by French aerospace company Dassault Aviation.