SC to hear fresh plea against Rafale deal

The Supreme Court will hear after two weeks a public interest litigation (PIL) that seeks the prosecution of alleged middleman Sushen Gupta and Prime Minister Narendra Modi under charges of cheating, breach of trust, and criminal conspiracy, over alleged kickbacks of 1 million Euros in the Rafale fighter jet deal.

Advocate- petitioner ML Sharma mentioned his PIL before Chief Justice of India (CJI) SA Bobde, who said the matter will be listed after two weeks. No fixed date, however, was set for the hearing.

Sharma claimed he was making rounds of the registry of the top court to get this matter listed urgently but to no avail. The lawyer also requested the CJI to hear this petition himself but justice Bobde, who retires on April 23, did not comment on it.

In December 2018, the top court rejected a bunch of petitions for a court-monitored probe into the fighter jet deal between India and France. It noted at the time that there was no evidence on irregularity or corruption in the governmentto- government deal for 36 fighter jets.

However, Sharma has now relied on reports by Mediapart, a French online journal, published earlier this month. Medipart claimed that it was in possession of documents that showed Dassault Aviation and its industrial partner Thales paid “middleman” Sushen Gupta around 1 million euros (approximately ₹ 8.9 crore by the current exchange rate) “secret commissions” in connection with the ₹59,000 crore deal.