Tag: Rafale Jet Deal

Rafale Remark: Rahul Says Sorry To SC

By LokMarg Publishing
Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Monday expressed regret before the Supreme Court over his “chowkidar chor hai” remark in connection with the apex court order of April 10 in the Rafale case, saying it was made during “hectic political campaigning without seeing, reading or analysing the order”.

He made the submission in his response to a contempt plea filed by BJP leader Meenakshi Lekhi for “misquoting’ the apex court order by saying that the court had accepted “chowkidar” (a reference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi), is a “chor'(thief).

The Chief chief said his statement was used and misused by political opponents and that he made the remark in the “heat of political campaigning”.

“It was made on the basis of a bonafide belief and general understanding of the order as being talked about in electronic and social media reportage and by several workers and activists,” Gandhi said in his affidavit.

He said that there was “no attempt too wilfully misinterpret” the court order.

The court had on April 10 dismissed the Centre’s preliminary objections claiming “privilege” over three Rafale documents cited in petitions seeking review of the December 14 verdict on the fighter jet deal.

In a unanimous judgement, the court had allowed the admissibility of the three documents and said the review pleas will be heard on merits.

Talking to the media in Amethi on April 10 after the apex court order, Gandhi said, “The Supreme Court has made it clear that “chowkidar” allowed “theft and that it had accepted that some sort of corruption had taken place in the Rafale deal”.

Thereafter, Lekhi filed the contempt plea against the Congress leader.

On April 15, a Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi decided to consider the petition.

It had asked the Congress president to file his response to the plea on or before April 22 and posted the hearing to April 23.

The court had said that it did not record any view or finding or made any observation as allegedly attributed to the court by the respondent (Gandhi).

ANI

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Rafale Jet Deal

Rafale Case: SC Rejcts Govt's Objections

By LokMarg Publishing
The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed the Centre’s preliminary objections claiming ‘privilege’ over three Rafale documents cited in petitions seeking review of the December 14 verdict on the fighter jet deal.

In a unanimous judgement, a three-judge bench headed Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi allowed the admissibility of the three documents and said the review pleas will be heard on merits.

“We deem it proper to dismiss preliminary objections and hold and affirm the review petitions will be adjudicated on the basis of relevance of the three documents whose admissibility was questioned by respondents,” Justice Gogoi said.

The bench said the date of hearing the review pleas will be decided later.

The review petitions were filed against the apex court’s December 14 judgement refusing to order a probe into the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France.

Arun Shourie, who is among the petitioners seeking review of the Rafale verdict, said, “Our argument was that because the documents relate to defence, you must examine them. You asked for the evidence and we have provided it. So the court has accepted our pleas and rejected the arguments of the government.”

The Centre had claimed “privilege” over the Rafale documents and their admissibility as evidence in the case.

The bench had said that it will take a decision first on the preliminary objections of the Centre on admissibility of “stolen” privileged documents annexed by former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie and lawyer Prashant Bhushan in their review petition against the apex court’s December 14 verdict.

The documents have already been published in the media. The Centre had also claimed that the documents were “unauthorisedly accessed” from the originals kept in the Ministry of Defence and leaked into the public domain.

The government had contended that the documents were protected under the Official Secrets Act and their disclosure was exempted under the Right to Information Act as per Section 8(1)(a).

However, the court had said Section 22 of the RTI Act gave an overriding effect over the Official Secrets Act.

(ANI)

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