Amethi: Congress chief Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday thanked the Supreme Court for rejecting the Centre’s objections over the admissibility of the “leaked” documents in the petitions seeking a review of the Rafale verdict of December 2018.
Speaking to reporters after filing his nomination papers in Amethi, Gandhi said the Prime Minister has been claiming that the Supreme Court had given him a clean chit in the Rafale case, but the court has instead begun an investigation into the deal.
“The Supreme Court has accepted that there was corruption in Rafale deal and that the Prime Minister has given Rs 30,000 crore to Anil Ambani,” Rahul Gandhi claimed, and added that the SC “has done justice today”.
“If the PM debates the issue with me, he will not be able to see eye-to-eye with the people of the country,” Gandhi said.
In a setback to the Centre, the Supreme Court allowed the leaked documents to be relied upon by petitioners and dismissed the government's preliminary objections claiming "privilege" over them.
The Centre had submitted that privilege documents were procured by petitioners in an illegal way and used to support their review petitions against the December 14, 2018 judgment of the apex court dismissing all pleas challenging procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France.
"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 apex court said it will go ahead with the hearing on the review petition on the basis of new documents referred by petitioners.
The judgment makes it clear that during the hearing of the review petition the bench will look into not only the question of pricing of the jet but also selection of Indian offset partner of Dassault which manufactures Rafale.
The apex court said it will fix a date for hearing review petitions.
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