As the Supreme Court on Wednesday began hearing review petitions on the Rafale jet deal, the central government told the court that Rafale papers were stolen from the defence ministry.
The Supreme Court, which is hearing petitions seeking review of its December 2018 verdict refusing to order a probe into the Rafale fighter jets deal, has put off hearing in the case until March 14.
The Centre took a strong exception to advocate Prashant Bhushan reading out from “secret” documents in the Supreme Court. Attorney General KK Venugopal said these documents were stolen from the government either by current or former officials.
“What have you done about it?” the three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi asked the Attorney General who said an investigation had been ordered into the matter.
While posting the matter for further hearing on March 14, the Bench left it to the government to file an affidavit on the issue detailing the action taken by it.
The NDA Government signed a deal with France in 2016 for the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets manufactured by Dassault Aviation for an estimated cost of Rs 59,000 crore in flyaway condition. The top court had in December last year dismissed petitions seeking probe into the deal.
The top court refused to hear the petition filed by AAP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh seeking review of its December 2018 verdict declining to order a probe into the Rafale fighter jet deal, saying he had made “very derogatory” remarks on its verdict.
The CJI said the court would take action against him after completing the hearing on the review petitions.
Before the action was taken, Singh would be given an opportunity to explain his conduct, said CJI Gogoi.
The CJI also refused to accept any new documents from Bhushan, including ‘The Hindu’ reports, and asked him to confine himself to the documents already on record.
Explaining the government’s case, the Attorney General sought the dismissal of the review petitions. At one point he wondered, without Rafale, how India could resist F-16s of Pakistan.
Venugopal requested the court to exercise restraint while commenting on Rafale deal as such statements would be used to target either the government or the opposition. As he asserted courts could not rely upon stolen documents as evidence, the Bench asked several pointed questions on the issue.
“When there is allegation of corruption, can the government take shelter under national security?” asked Justice KM Joseph.
The Bench said the government can’t take a general stand that no secret documents can be considered by the court. There were a large number of judgments which said courts could look into secret documents even when the government had claimed privilege in terms of Section 123 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, Justice Joseph pointed out.
As Venugopal insisted that the petitioners must reveal the source of the documents, the CJI sought to know what if an accused established the plea of alibi based on a stolen document. “Should the Court ignore?” he asked.
Prashant Bhushan told the Bench that there was an attempt to intimidate the petitioner on the part of the Attorney General who raised the issue of certain documents which are already in the public domain. Such an attempt amounted to criminal contempt of court, he added.