Highlights
- The Supreme Court bench said that the court cannot decide on the wisdom to purchase 36 fighter jets in fly-away condition as against the earlier deal for 126.
- Prashant Bhushan: "SC judgement is totally wrong, the campaign will certainly not drop and we will decide if we will file a review petition."
India's Supreme Court has dismissed all petitions on Friday, seeking court-monitored probe in the multi-billion dollar Rafale fighter jet deal. The court said there won't be any probe into the pricing or the NDA (National Democratic Alliance) government's decision-making process to purchase 36 Rafale fighter jets from Dassault under Indo-French intergovernmental agreement.
News Agency Asian News International (@ANI) tweeted on December 14 :"Supreme Court dismisses all the petitions seeking a court-monitored investigation into the Rafale deal."
The Rafale deal controversy
The decision caused an uproar in Lok Sabha after the Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi said: "We can't compel government to purchase 126 aircrafts and its not proper for the court to examine each aspect of this case. It isn't a job of court to compare pricing details."
According to Randeep Surjewala, member of Congress: "The verdict of the Supreme Court today is a validation of what the Congress party stated months ago, that the SC is not the forum to decide the such sensitive defence contract..."
The Congress party had earlier demanded a Joint Parliamentary Probe (JPC) into the matter
Many reacted against the Supreme Court's verdict. Academic Ashok Swain tweeted: "Today's SC judgment will NOT bring an end to the #RafaleDeal controversy. It is not a legal judgment, a pure Nationalist one. The French National Financial Prosecutor's office might start an investigation soon. #RafaleDeal is a broad daylight loot and will continue to haunt Modi."
Public Interest Lawyer and activist Prashant Bhushan(@pbhushan1) took to Twitter to express disappointment: "Very disappointing Jt of the SC saying that there is no need for the court to order investigation into Rafale deal. Court says price seems OK on basis of govt's sealed cover, which was not shown to us. Today Caravan has revealed that Modi himself increased price from 5.2-7.8B Euro"
@pbhushan1 also pointed out discrepancies: "SC also accepted govt claim that selection of Ambani as offset partner was done by Dassalt and the government has no role in it, despite the fact that defence procurement procedures and offset guidelines require that all offset contracts must be approved by the Defence Minister!"
Now, other political parties are demanding a JPC probe into #Rafaledeal, according to the ANI.
Twitter user @nawedbelagam posted: "Public perception about this deal can not be altered by non-interference from Supreme Court."
However, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) supporters and leaders rejoiced at the decision.
BJP President Amit Shah said: "Rahul Gandhi ji should apologise to the nation for misleading people. Want to ask Rahul ji what was the source of information on basis of which he made such big allegations?"
Social activist @pankhuripathak tweeted: "You don't need to be a legal expert to get what the court is implying when it says that it's 'not the job of the court' to go into issues like pricing & choice of offset partner but the media & BJP are twisting the judgement to appear as they want. #RafaleDeal #RafaleVerdict"
#RafaleDeal #RafaleVerdict
