New Delhi: Countering the petition seeking to review the 14 December, 2018 judgment on Rafale deal, the Central government today filed a new affidavit in the Supreme Court.
In the affidavit, the government said that the apex court’s December judgment is correct on the Rafale deal. The affidavit pointed that there was no need to review the previous judgment because the review petition was based on unsubstantiated media reports and on or part of the internal file notings that were deliberately projected by the petitioners.
The Center, in its affidavit, also pointed out that the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) was monitoring the Rafale deal and this cannot be interpreted as interfering in the deal or as parallel negotiations.
The affidavit says, “monitoring of progress by the Prime Minister’s Office to government processes cannot be construed as interference or parallel negotiations.”
On charges of perjury, the affidavit makes it clear that the government had submitted all the documents in the court and no information was selectively passed on to the apex court as alleged by the petitioners.
The government made it clear that the then Defence Minister, Manohar Parrikar, had noted that the PMO was closely monitoring the deal and that there was nothing unnatural in it.
The Comptroller and Audit General (CAG) had earlier given a clean chit to the Rafale deal by the government and pointed out that the present NDA government was able to strike the deal which was actually 2.86% cheaper than the previous UPA’s deal.
