Rafale verdict Updates: SC verdict opened doors for proper probe, says Congress

Updated: Thursday, November 14, 2019, 16:33 [IST]

New Delhi, Nov 14: The Supreme Court has rejected the review petitions in the Rafale case. A review petition had been filed challenging the clean chit given to the NDA government in the purchase of 36 fully loaded Rafale jets from France under the inter-governmental deal.

Rafale review verdict LIVE: Will clean chit to govt be upheld?

The top court has closed the contempt case against Rahul Gandhi in which he attributed his remark, Chowkidar Chor Hai to the Rafale judgment of the Supreme Court.

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Nov 14, 2019, 4:19 PM IST

Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala once again reiterated his party's nine questions on Rafale deal.

Nov 14, 2019, 3:54 PM IST

"Today’s decision,yet again,reaffirms Modi sarkar’s credentials as a govt which is transparent and corruption free," he adds.

Nov 14, 2019, 3:53 PM IST

SC’s decision to dismiss the review petition on Rafale is a befitting reply to those leaders and parties who rely on malicious and baseless campaigns, says Home Minister Amit Shah.

Nov 14, 2019, 2:25 PM IST

Prasad said, 'It is recognition of the honest decision making process of the Narendra Modi government...Satayamav Jayete. The Congress party must apologise and Rahul Gandhi in particular must apologise to the country."

Nov 14, 2019, 2:24 PM IST

Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad asked Rahul for an apology and said the BJP wished to know who was behind the Congressman's campaign.

Nov 14, 2019, 1:25 PM IST

Hope the matter is now laid to rest. Raking up such issues to get political gains, putting the interest of your armed forces behind, I think is not right, he says

Nov 14, 2019, 1:21 PM IST

BS Dhanoa, former chief of the Air Staff: I think we have been vindicated. In December 2018 I had issued a statement that Supreme Court has given a fine judgement and at that time some people said that I was being political, which was incorrect.

Nov 14, 2019, 12:59 PM IST

Union Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday welcomed the Supreme Court's dismissal of the review petitions in the Rafale case.

I wholeheartedly welcome the Supreme Court’s categorical dismissal of the review petitions in the Rafale case and with this pronouncement the NDA Government stands vindicated. The SC verdict is also a judgement on our Government’s transparency in decision making.
— Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) November 14, 2019

Nov 14, 2019, 12:51 PM IST

SC verdict huge victory for Narendra Modi led govt, says BJP general secretary (organisation) B L Santhosh.

SC rejects review petitions on #Rafale deal & raps @RahulGandhi & asks him to be careful in future ... Huge victory for @narendramodi led Govt ..
— B L Santhosh (@blsanthosh) November 14, 2019

Nov 14, 2019, 12:47 PM IST

From road to Parliament, Rahul Gandhi and his party tried hard to mislead the country on this issue but truth prevailed. I wish Rahul Gandhi would be in country and should offer apologies to nation, says BJP working president, JP Nadda.

Nov 14, 2019, 12:09 PM IST

"Truth triumphs. Truth can be bothered but not defeated," BJP spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain said.

Nov 14, 2019, 12:09 PM IST

The BJP on Thursday reacted with jubilation to the Supreme Court's decision to reject review petitions for probing the Rafale deal, saying truth has triumphed and that it is a huge victory for the Modi government.

Nov 14, 2019, 11:54 AM IST

Recting to Rafale verdict, BJP leader GVL Narsimha Rao says "Hope that after today's SC verdict court hearing was a slap to Congress' and Rahul Gandhi's face, hope that after today's erdict, Rahul Gandhi will be more careful."

Nov 14, 2019, 11:07 AM IST

While closing the contempt case against Rahul Gandhi, the SC said that he should be more careful in future. He uttered the words, Chowkidar Chor Hai, without even reading the Rafale judgment of the Supreme Court dated December 2018.

Nov 14, 2019, 11:06 AM IST

Justice S K Kaul who read out the verdict said that there are no grounds to order an FIR. The court cannot initiate a roving and fishing inquiry. There are no grounds for an FIR, the court said while rejecting the review petitions.

Nov 14, 2019, 11:03 AM IST

The court also closed the contempt plea against Rahul Gandhi. The court said that Rahul Gandhi needs to be more careful in future for attributing to the court his remarks.

Nov 14, 2019, 11:01 AM IST

With the review petitions being rejected, the earlier order of the court that gave the government a clean chit remains in force.

Nov 14, 2019, 11:01 AM IST

The Supreme Court said that there is no ground to order an FIR into the procurement of the Rafale jets. No merit in plea seeking probe into defence deal says SC.

Nov 14, 2019, 10:59 AM IST

SC rejects review petitions in Rafale case.

Nov 14, 2019, 10:28 AM IST

Sabarimala activist Rahul Easwar says that if the verdict goes against them, then they would have a Jallikattu model protest. It would be a peace protest, he told News18.

Nov 14, 2019, 10:17 AM IST

The verdict will be delivered by a three-judge Bench comprising Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi, Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and K M Joseph.

Nov 14, 2019, 9:04 AM IST

A review petition had been filed challenging the clean chit given to the NDA government in the purchase of 36 fully loaded Rafale jets from France under the inter-governmental deal.

Nov 14, 2019, 9:04 AM IST

The court had observed that it is not its job to go into pricing when the need and quality of aircraft is not in doubt. Further the court also said it did not find anything wrong in the selection of the Indian offset partners by Dassault. All the pleas have been dismissed. The court also said that no further review is required, while also adding that no probe is required into the pricing aspect or decision making process for the purchase of the aircraft.

Nov 14, 2019, 9:04 AM IST

On the offset partner the Bench said that it is up to the vendor and not the central government to decide on the same. It is not for the court to step into what is appropriate. Mere press interviews cannot be the basis of the same. There is no commercial favouritism and hence there is no need to intervene.

Nov 14, 2019, 9:04 AM IST

On January 2, Sinha, Shourie and Bhushan had approached the court seeking review of the judgement, alleging that the court had relied upon "patently incorrect" claims made by the government in an unsigned note given in a sealed cover in the court.

Nov 14, 2019, 9:03 AM IST

The Centre had submitted that three privileged documents were unauthorisedly removed from the Defence Ministry and used by the petitioners to support their review petitions against the verdict which had dismissed all pleas challenging the procurement of the fighter jets.

Nov 14, 2019, 9:03 AM IST

The top court had rejected the objections raised by the Centre that those documents were not admissible as evidence under Section 123 of the Indian Evidence Act, and no one can produce them in court without the permission of the department concerned as they are also protected under the Official Secrets Act.

Nov 14, 2019, 9:03 AM IST

This would be the last major judgment to be delivered by CJI Ranjan Gogoi. He had delivered the landmark Ayodhya judgment on Saturday last. On Wednesday, he also led a Bench that held that the CJI’s office comes under the purview of the RTI Act subject to reasonable restrictions.

Nov 14, 2019, 9:01 AM IST

The Hindu in an article had cited internal documents and said that there were parallel discussions by the PMO on the deal. The report said that this weakened the negotiating positions by the Ministry of Defence and the negotiating team. The report also said that the deal became costlier for India as France refused to provide bank guarantees.

Nov 14, 2019, 8:57 AM IST

Venugopal said the application filed by Yashwant Sinha, Arun Shourie and Prashant Bhushant, seeking from the court a review of its verdict dismissing pleas for a probe into against the Rafale deal, had annexed three documents which were photocopies of the original.

Nov 13, 2019, 1:05 pm IST

The court had also noted that no law enacted by Parliament specifically barring or prohibiting the publication of such documents on any of the grounds mentioned in Article 19(2) of the Constitution has been brought to its notice.

Nov 13, 2019, 1:06 pm IST

It had said the documents used in the pleas were published in The Hindu' in February and one of the papers was also published by The Wire'.

Nov 13, 2019, 1:07 pm IST

It had noted that all the three documents were in "public domain" and published by prominent daily The Hindu were "in consonance with the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech".

Nov 13, 2019, 1:29 pm IST

Nov 13, 2019, 1:49 pm IST

In a setback to the Centre, the apex court on April 10 allowed the pleas which relied on leaked documents for seeking review of its Rafale judgement and dismissed the government's preliminary objections claiming "privilege" over them.

Nov 13, 2019, 2:09 pm IST

Nov 13, 2019, 2:30 pm IST

On January 2, Sinha, Shourie and Bhushan had approached the Supreme Court seeking review of the judgement, alleging that the court had relied upon "patently incorrect" claims made by the government in an unsigned note given in a sealed cover in the court.

Nov 13, 2019, 2:51 pm IST

The top court had said there was no substantial evidence of commercial favouritism to any private entity.

Nov 13, 2019, 3:11 pm IST

In the verdict, the court said there was no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France and dismissed all the petitions seeking an investigation into alleged irregularities in the Rs 58,000 crore deal.

Nov 13, 2019, 3:31 pm IST

Besides the trio, AAP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh has also filed a separate review petition in the case.

Nov 13, 2019, 6:32 pm IST

The Rafale case: In 2015, India announced that it had conveyed to France that it would acquire 36 Rafale jet in fly-away condition.

Nov 13, 2019, 7:29 pm IST

India and France concluded an Inter-Governmental Agreement for the supply of the aircraft.

Nov 13, 2019, 9:25 pm IST

The negotiation for Rafale was first started by the Congress-led UPA but it could not conclude the deal as both the parties were yet to agree on a number of issues.

Nov 13, 2019, 10:09 pm IST

The Congress claimed that price at which Rafale was being bought was way higher than what it had negotiated with France.

Nov 13, 2019, 11:30 pm IST

It said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi bypassed the Cabinet Committee on Security and pushed the deal through his office PMO.

Nov 14, 2019, 7:59 am IST

The Supreme Court would also deliver its verdict in a contempt plea filed against Rahul Gandhi. The court had said earlier that its Rafale judgment "had no occasion" to make any such comments ascribed to it by Rahul Gandhi. The judgment was solely on a legal question about admissibility as evidence certain documents objected to by the AG, the court also said.

Nov 14, 2019, 8:00 am IST

Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Meenakshi Lekhi, told the bench that the Congress president reportedly made a remark that the "Supreme Court said chowkidaar chor hai (The watchman is a thief)," in the verdict.

Nov 14, 2019, 8:28 am IST

It may be recalled that when the review was filed the petitioners, Arun Shourie, Yashwant Sinha and Prashant Bhushan had submitted fresh documents before the court. The Centre had then pleaded that these documents were unauthorisedly photo-copied from defence files and that these would have an inimical impact on national security and also friendly relations with France.

Nov 14, 2019, 8:47 am IST

There was a full blown controversy over these documents, with the Centre represented by Attorney General K K Venugopal saying that these documents were stolen. However later on he claimed that the Rafale documents were not stolen from the Defence Ministry and that what he meant in his submission before the Supreme Court was that petitioners in the application used "photocopies of the original" papers, deemed secret by the government

Nov 14, 2019, 8:57 am IST

Nov 14, 2019, 9:01 am IST

Nov 14, 2019, 9:03 am IST

Nov 14, 2019, 9:04 am IST

A review petition had been filed challenging the clean chit given to the NDA government in the purchase of 36 fully loaded Rafale jets from France under the inter-governmental deal.

Nov 14, 2019, 10:17 am IST

The verdict will be delivered by a three-judge Bench comprising Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi, Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and K M Joseph.

Nov 14, 2019, 10:28 am IST

Sabarimala activist Rahul Easwar says that if the verdict goes against them, then they would have a Jallikattu model protest. It would be a peace protest, he told News18.

Rafale verdict Updates: SC verdict opened doors for proper probe, says Congress

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