Centre denies perjury allegation in Rafale case

This was contained in an affidavit filed by the government in the apex court on an application of perjury filed by petitioners against government officials in the Rafale review petition. allegations.

In its affidavit, the government said the contentions of the petitioners--Yashwant Sinha and others--that officials made false statement and suppressed evidence while submitting information on decision-making process, offset and pricing of the Rafale deal pursuant to the orders passed by this court is completely "false, baseless and an attempt to intimidate government servants from performing their duty".

A Bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice KM Joseph had earlier asked the Centre to file affidavit on petitioners' perjury application.

Petitioners had filed the perjury application after the December 14, 2018 judgement of the top court upholding the 36 Rafale jets' deal, seeking initiation of perjury proceedings against officials who allegedly made false statement and suppressed evidence while submitting sealed note before apex court on Rafale deal.

The Centre has denied the allegations that there is any suppression of information or presentation of untrue information.

The government said the petitioners are seeking to reopen the whole matter by placing reliance on incomplete file notings and media reports.

"Media reports cannot form the basis for seeking initiation of 'perjury proceedings' since it is well settled that Courts do not take decisions on the basis of media reports," it added.

The government also stated that the mismatch that was found in the some paragraphs of the December, 2018 judgement of the Court in the Rafale case was sought to be corrected by filing of an application the very next day of the judgment and the same is under consideration still.

The mismatch, however, does not affect the main Judgement, the centre has stated.

"In any case the mismatch does not in any manner either directly or indirectly affect the main judgment and it is not a substantial error as contended since the fact of the matter is that there is no fault found either in the decision-making process or in the matter of pricing as concluded by the CAG in its report submitted subsequent to the judgment," it said.

The Centre has also added that on the issue of pricing information, the Centre was not required to share the note on pricing with the petitioners on account of it being classified.

"It is denied that there is untruth and suppression in the notes regarding 'decision making process' and 'offsets'.

It is denied that Supreme Court was misled in any manner as these are perceptions of the petitioners devoid of merits," the affidavit.

The centre reiterated its position on parallel negotiations in this affidavit and stated that the monitoring of the progress by the PMO cannot be construed as interference or parallel negotiations.

The government further said that Rafale deal was not the only case where sovereign guarantee has been done away with and previous security agreements with Russian Federation and United States also had letters of comfort.