The Spiral Dive
RAFALE FIGHTER JETS The Supreme Court nixed a petition asking for a probe into the Rafale deal, but the Opposition is not convinced
The French-built fighter aircraft, named after a squall, kicked up a political duststorm in India this year. The opposition Congress seized upon the 2016 purchase of 36 fighter aircraft worth an estimated Rs 60,000 crore as a political issue to target the Modi government with. That the intent to purchase the jets was announced by the PM on a state visit to Paris in 2015 made it all the more attractive as a political weapon. In the Rafale purchase, the Congress spotted a Bofors—the 1986 purchase of Swedish-made howitzers for which bribes were paid sparking a nationwide anti-corruption campaign which saw Rajiv Gandhi’s party voted out of power. There were no middlemen in what was a deal between the governments of India and France, but in the presence of businessman Anil Ambani as a defence offsets partner in the deal, the opposition saw evidence of crony capitalism However, as it later emerged, it had to do with a rather thin reading of a UPA-era defence offsets policy. Ambani was only one of nearly 100 beneficiaries of offsets where the largest beneficiary was the DRDO.
Most of the Opposition’s contentions were rejected by a December 12 Supreme Court verdict on a petition filed by a group, including two former Union ministers. Questions on the deal still abound, particularly on the issue of the exact price the jets were bought for, which the government has refused to divulge, citing confidentiality clauses in the intergovernmental agreement with France, and the reasons for the reduced number of jets (the IAF wanted 126 of them). A longawaited CAG audit on the deal is not due until next year. The truth perhaps lies in what the Supreme Court says— there may have been some deviations in the procedure for the Rafale deal, but these were so minor as to not warrant an investigation.
With the opposition unlikely to give up on its demand for a joint parliamentary committee to investigate the deal, the dust on the Rafale saga clearly isn’t going to settle until after the Lok Sabha election in May 2019.