New Delhi: Former Union minister Arun Shourie on Friday urged the Supreme Court to take government officials to task for perjury, lying and for misleading the court to secure a favourable verdict on December 14 in the Rafale aircraft deal. Arguing along with activist advocate Prashant Bhushan for review of the verdict, he said each of the errors in the judgment can be traced to the false submissions of the government to the Supreme Court. “You (court) placed trust in the government and the government abused your trust,” Shourie submitted, wondering why the government cannot share all documents of
the deal with the court while claiming that they can be shared with the Comptroller and Auditor General. Bhushan clarified that the petitioners were not seeking cancellation of the Rafale deal, but they only wanted a CBI probe and registration of an FIR. He said errors crept in the judgment largely due to the court’s reliance on incorrect information supplied by the Centre. He also questioned how the government knew in November that certain portions of pricing will be redacted in the CAG report in 2019. He said the government also concealed the information regarding the last meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security and dropping of eight clauses in the contract.
“Why did they drop those anti-corruption clauses? Their reply is silent on it. This alone is sufficient ground for vitiat-ing the judgment,” Bhushan argued. He said the letter of comfort cited by the government for dissatisfaction offers no comfort as ultimately the deal went through without any bank or sovereign guarantee. Bhushan said even the delivery of the aircraft is going to be delayed; the government had claimed that 36 aircraft will be delivered quickly, which did not happen.
He said another crucial issue was benchmarking. Manufacture of 108 aircraft in India, as per the earlier deal, included transfer of technology. “We have sought production of all documents. They can redact details relating to national security. In any case they can share it with the court,” Bhushan said, rebutting the Centre’s claim that PMO was only keeping track and there were no parallel negotiations by it. “Even the NSA was clearly a playing role. There are so many things in this case which more than meets the eye and require investigation,” he added.
