New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed preliminary objections raised by the Centre that documents on which it claimed “privilege” cannot be relied upon to re-examine the verdict in the Rafale fighter jet deal.
The Centre had submitted that the “privileged” documents were procured by the petitioners in an illegal way and used to support their review petitions against the December 14, 2018 judgement of the apex court dismissing all pleas challenging the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France.
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“We dismiss the preliminary objection raised by Union of India questioning the maintainability of the review petition,” a bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices S.K. Kaul and K.M. Joseph said.
The decision was unanimous. According to LiveLaw, Justice Joseph wrote a separate judgment concurring with CJI Gogoi and Justice Kaul.
“We deem it proper to dismiss the preliminary objections to hold and affirm that the review petitions will be adjudicated on their merits on the basis of the relevance of the three documents whose admissibility was questioned by the respondents (government),” CJI Gogoi said, according to The Hindu.
The top court said review petitions against its December 14 verdict dismissing all petitions against procurement of Rafale jets will be decided on merits.
The apex court said it will fix a date for hearing the review petitions.
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The Ministry of Defence responded to the Supreme Court’s verdict by saying that petitioners are using “selective and incomplete” documents. “Government had provided requisite information as desired by SC and also provided all records and files as required by CAG. The main concern of the government is relating to availability of sensitive and classified information concerning national security in the public domain,” ANI quoted the ministry as saying.
“The documents presented by the petitioners are failing to bring out how the issues were addressed and resolved and necessary approvals of the competent authorities taken. These are selective and incomplete presentation of the facts and records by the petitioners,” the statement says.
Former Union minister Arun Shourie, one of the review petitioners in the case, on Wednesday said he was delighted by the Supreme Court verdict dismissing the Centre’s “peculiar argument” on privileged documents.
“We are delighted it is an unanimous verdict dismissing Central government’s peculiar argument on admissibility of documents. Centre’s argument meant no wrong can be done in the defence deal,” he told PTI.
One of the petitioners, former Union minister Arun Shourie, leaving court on Wednesday. Credit: PTI
Opposition parties have also welcomed the court’s decision. The Congress said skeletons in the “scam” are tumbling out and now there is “no Official Secrets Act” to hide behind for the Modi government.
“Modiji, you can run and lie as much as you want but sooner or later the truth comes out. The skeletons in Rafale scam are tumbling out one by one. And now there is ‘no official secrets act’ to hide behind,” Congress’s chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said.
“SC has upheld a time honoured legal principle; A rattled Modiji had threatened to invoke Official Secrets Act against independent journalists for exposing his corruption on Rafale.Don’t worry Modiji, an investigation is going to take place now, whether you like it or not,” he said in a series of tweets.
Communist Party of India (Marxist) chief Sitaram Yechury continued his attack on the ruling party, saying the deal “promoted cronyism”.
“Modi and his govt have compromised national security for corruption & cronyism in an important defence deal. They tried to evade accountability, denied a JPC, hid price from CAG, tried to first mislead, then stall any hearing in Supreme Court. Important that culprits are booked,” he tweeted.
The documents being referred to were reported in various media outlets. While the AG had first said that they were “stolen” and charges would be filed against journalists and media houses including The Hindu under the Official Secrets Act, he later backtracked on this claim.
While the Centre was making a submission that the documents can be withheld from disclosure under the RTI Act in view of the national security, the top court earlier said Section 22 of the RTI Act gave it an overriding effect over the Official Secrets Act.
It also said that under Section 24 of the RTI Act even security and intelligence establishments are not exempted from disclosing information in relation to corruption and human rights violations.
“The RTI Act brought a revolution. In 2009, your own government said file notings can be made available under the RTI. Let us not go back now,” the bench had said.
(With PTI inputs)