Experts should review Rafale deal, not court — Government
DELAY IN CONCLUDING ACCORD GAVE ADVERSARIES TIME TO UPGRADE FLEETS, THEY SAY
The Narendra Modi-government yesterday questioned the prospect of the Supreme Court (SC) reviewing the 7.87 billion euro (Dh32.6 billion) deal with French firm Dassault for purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets, stating that only experts can undertake the exercise. “Is the court competent to judicially review this? The matter is for experts to decide on, not the court,” Attorney General (AG) K K Venugopal said before the court.
He said the information asked by the court was protected under the secrecy clause of the deal. “The Rafale issue is only for the experts to deal with. We have been saying that even Parliament has not been told about details such as the complete cost of jets. The information cannot be disclosed even under the Right to Information Act,” he added.
The government claimed that the delay in concluding the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) deal, during the rule of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, gave India’s adversaries time to upgrade their fighter fleets. “During this period of inconclusive 126 MMRCA process, our adversaries inducted modern aircraft and upgraded. They acquired better capability air-to-air missiles and inducted their indigenous fighters in large numbers. Further, they modernised and inducted aircraft with advanced weapon and radar capabilities,” the AG said.
The court then decided to reserve its order on a batch of petitions seeking a court-monitored probe into the deal. The petitioners in the case include lawyers Vineet Dhanda and Manohar Lal Sharma, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Sanjay Singh, former union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie, and activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan.