Rafale verdict: SC finds petitions lacking merit, dismisses review plea

The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected petitions seeking a review of decision in 2018 that gave a clean chit to the government in the Rafale fighter jet deal with French firm Dassault Aviation.

The bench comprised Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices S K Kaul and K M Joseph.

The Supreme Court on December 14 last year had dismissed petitions seeking court-monitored probe into the alleged irregularities in the Rs 58,000 crore deal. The top court had said it was not its job to go into the issue of pricing of fighter planes.

Subsequently, review petitions were filed by former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha, Arun Shourie, lawyer Prashant Bhushan and others against the top court's judgment re-examination of its findings in the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets and a CBI probe into the deal.

On May 10, 2019, the top court had reserved the decision on the pleas.

In its reply, the centre had said the petitioners relied on media reports and they can't reopen the case. The Centre had filed an affidavit seeking dismissal of the review petition after some internal documents of the Defence Ministry related to the Rafale fighter deal came out in a section of the media.

The Centre asserted that the petitioners had procured privileged documents in an "illegal way" to support their review petitions. It told the court that the documents attached by the petitioners are sensitive to national security and relate to war capacity of the combat aircraft.

The top court had reserved the order on their pleas in May, earlier this year.