"The court would like to be apprised of the details with regard to the pricing/cost, particularly the advantage thereof, if any, which again will be submitted to the court in sealed cover," ordered a bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices U U Lalit and K M Joseph after 10-minute proceedings without hearing any of the PIL petitioners, including former finance minister and BJP rebel Yashwant Sinha.
This development assumes significance as the CJI-led bench had on October 10, while seeking details of the decision-making process leading to the Rafale deal, clarified that the details it was seeking "would not cover the issue of pricing or the question of technical suitability" of the fighter jets.
The court directed the Centre to place in the public domain details about the process used for the induction of offset partners, which include Reliance Defence and whose selection has been used by Rahul Gandhi to accuse the Prime Minister of corruption. The court's direction is expected to further fuel the Congress's attacks on the Modi government.
Attorney general K K Venugopal conveyed unequivocally to the court that since most aspects of the Rafale deal, including pricing, weaponry and technical advantages, were covered under the Official Secrets Act, 1923, the government may not be able to provide details of the fully-loaded version of 36 Rafale fighter jets to the court, as such information had been withheld even from Parliament.
The bench told the AG that if the government was invoking OSA to hold back information from the court, it should file an appropriate affidavit in 10 days in this regard. It posted the case for further hearing on November 14.
Significantly, the CJI-led bench also asked the Centre to place in the public domain details of the decision-making process.
A note on this issue was given by the Centre to the court on October 26.
After perusing the Centre's note on "Details of the steps in the decision-making process leading to the award of 36 Rafale jet fighters/fighter aircraft", the bench ordered: "We are of the opinion that such of the core information conveyed to the court in the aforesaid confidential report, which can legitimately be brought into the public domain, be made available to the counsel for petitioners in all the cases, as well as petitioners-in person."
The petitioners include M L Sharma and Vineet Dhanda, AAP functionary and RS MP Sanjay Singh besides a joint petition filed by Yashwant Sinha, Arun Shourie and advocate Prashant Bhushan.
"Along with the said facts, further details that could legitimately come in the public domain with regard to the induction of the Indian offset partner (if any) be also furnished to the counsel for parties and petitioners-in-person. Such of the details in this regard, which may be considered strategic and confidential, be placed before the court and may not be furnished to the counsel for the parties or petitioners-in-person," the bench said.
There was a palpable change in the SC's approach towards the case after it perused the Centre's note on the details of the decision-making process. If on October 10 it had termed the PIL petitions "inadequate and deficient", on Wednesday it asked the Centre to provide them with the note on the decision-making process as well as the process by which Indian offset partners of Dassualt were inducted. On October 10, it had clarified that it was not going into the details of pricing, but on October 31, it sought details of the same and the advantages it carried.
As in the previous hearing, the AG refrained from referring to the non-disclosure agreement with France which it has cited to turn down the demand for disclosing the price and weaponry, especially India-specific additions.
from Times of India https://ift.tt/2qjgAys
