Business Today: New Delhi: Thursday, November
15, 2018.
The Supreme Court today reserved its
order on pleas seeking court-monitored probe into the controversial Rafale deal
with Dassault Aviation after a four-hour hearing. The three-judge bench, headed
by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, made it clear that any discussion on
pricing of the fighter jets could only take place if the facts on the deal were
made public. "The decision we need to take is whether to bring the fact on
pricing in public domain or not," the bench told Attorney General K.K.
Venugopal.
Here's a brief recap of the proceedings
at the top court today:
The initial arguments today were
commenced by advocate Manohar Lal Sharma, one of the petitioners, who
reportedly told the court that the Inter Government Agreement was
"illegal" and sought an investigation in the matter. Lawyer Vineet
Dhanda, AAP leader Sanjay Singh, former Union Ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun
Shourie and activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan have also filed petitions on the
matter.
According to The Financial Express, while
the submissions by Sharma and Dhanda focussed on Prime Minister Narendra Modi
announcing the deal before the agreement was finalised, Singh's counsel
questioned why the government reduced the deal of 126 jets to 36 given the
concern that adversaries are inducting more fighter jets.
Then, Bhushan, appearing on behalf of himself
and the former union ministers, alleged a hike of 40 per cent in the price per
aircraft to Euro 270 million. He also claimed that apart from the issues of
procedure, offset and pricing, there was a fourth issue of circumventing of
tender by opting for an intergovernmental agreement, the conditions for which
had not been met. He also alleged that the government was hiding behind the
secrecy clause of the agreement. But when he wanted to submit information on
this clause, Venugopal reportedly objected saying, "Secrecy agreement has
to be secret and how he is producing it in court?"
Bhushan countered that by questioning how
the price issue can compromise national security. "If I may point out, it
was disclosed twice in Parliament formally. If it is a matter of national
security, then the government has compromised national security twice by
disclosing it in Parliament," Bhushan added. "In any case, this is
covered by RTI Act and it is a bogus argument by government to say that price
cannot be disclosed due to secrecy etc."
According to him, top officials have
abused their authority as public servants by giving this contract to Dassault
at inflated prices and by giving offset to Reliance. "It is therefore in
the nature of a commission and constitutes an offence under Prevention of
Corruption Act. Hence, CBI has to register an FIR ... This has not been done
despite our complaint to CBI, hence we have approached this court," he
said.
However, the Attorney General continued
to defend the secrecy regarding pricing of the 36 jets saying "our
adversaries may get an advantage" by such a disclosure. During the
hearing, he mentioned that at the exchange rate of November 2016, the cost of a
bare fighter jet was Rs 670 crore.
Interestingly, the Centre's stand on secrecy
comes two days after the government submitted details of pricing of the Rafale
deal to the apex court in a sealed cover. Venugopal, in fact, contended that
"even Parliament has not been told about the complete cost of jets"
and asserted that the decision on types of aircraft and weapons that need to be
bought was a matter for experts and not an issue to be adjudicated upon by the
judiciary.
He added that he had decided not to
peruse the pricing aspect himself "as in a case of any leak, my office
would be held responsible". Venugopal concluded his argument saying that
Rafale aircrafts are potent and "had we possessed Rafale during the Kargil
war, we could have avoided huge casualties as Rafale is capable of hitting
targets from a distance of 60 kms". When the bench pointed out that the
Rafale jets came 14 years after Kargil, the top law officer replied that he had
said it "hypothetically".
Today's hearing also covered inputs from
top Air Force officers. "We are dealing with requirements of the Air Force
and would like to ask an Air Force officer on the Rafale jet. We want to hear
from an Air force officer and not the office of the Defence Ministry on the
issue," the bench said after hearing the arguments submitted by the
petitioners.
Air Marshal V.R. Chaudhari, Alok Khosla,
Commander-in-Chief, Eastern Air Command, and two other officers from Indian Air
Force then appeared in the top court. The bench asked the officers about latest
induction in the Air Force, they replied it was the Sukhoi 30s, which is a 3.5
generation aircraft and added that they do not have 4th or 5th generation
aircraft. The top court then pointed out that it meant "there has been no
induction of aircrafts since 1985". That's something worth keeping in mind
as the Rafale controversy plays out.
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