In a huge jolt to the Center, the Supreme Court has dismissed the Center’s stand on relying on leaked documents in the Rafale case when it hears review petitions. Therefore, the documents that the Attorney General (AG) alleged were stolen from the Ministry of Defence, will be admissible when the court hears the review petitions filed against the judgement in the case.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices SK Kaul and KM Joseph ruled, “We dismiss the preliminary objection raised by Union of India questioning the maintainability of the review petition.”
In October 2018, Advocate Prashant Bhushan, journalist Arun Shourie and former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha, had filed a complaint with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) asking for an investigation into the role of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar (now deceased) in a deal allegedly marred with corruption.
On December 14, 2018, the SC had ruled against a CBI probe into the case that is being touted as one of the biggest defence scams in the country. But skeletons began to tumble out of the closet when on March 6, 2019 The Hindu newspaper exposed how the absence of bank guarantees led to a more expensive deal. There were also allegation of false submissions being made by the government before the apex court. This lead to review petitions being filed by Bhushan, Shourie and Singh as they made fresh applications to review the judgement.
The state had previously threatened action against media outlets for exposing the scam using the said documents. AG KK Venugopal had argued that the media houses should be tried under the Official Secrets Act. But now review petitions in the case will be heard on merits, and today’s SC ruling paves the way for the said documents to be examined as evidence in the case. The court will set a date for hearing the review petitions.