All guidelines were followed in NDA's Rafale deal: Official sources

All guidelines laid down in the Defence Procurement Procedure were followed by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government during the procurement of the Rafale jets, according to the official sources.

According to the sources, reports that have surfaced recently in the media seek to "create confusion" about the controversial Rafale deal, "through distorted and selective presentation of facts," adding that the report also suffers from several factual errors.

The sources further said that the government has categorically stated that all provisions laid down in the Defence Procurement Procedure and other relevant guidelines were fully followed in the acquisition of 36 Rafale fighter aircraft.

The Defence Acquisition Council, chaired by the Defence Minister, accepted the necessity for the acquisition of Rafale aircraft and mandated the Contract Negotiating Committee, the sources said, adding that the Cabinet Committee on Security had accorded its approval to the acquisition on August 24, 2016, and not in September 2016.

The deal to buy 36 ready-to-fly Rafale fighter jets was signed in 2016 between the NDA government and the French government under the then-President Francois Hollande, after scrapping the United Progressive Alliance's (UPA) deal to buy 18 ready-to-fly jets and assemble a further 108 in India.

The Congress has been targeting the Centre of irregularities in the high-profile contract, alleging that the NDA government was procuring each aircraft at a cost of over Rs 1,670 crore as against Rs 526 crore finalised by the then UPA government.

The controversy took a new twist last week after former French President Francois Hollande, with whom Prime Minister Modi had cleared the deal in 2016, claimed that the Indian government had proposed Reliance Defence's name as the offset partner for Dassault Aviation.