Attacking the Congress’s demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee investigation into the Rafale deal, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Sunday that a JPC could not go into the “correctness or otherwise” of a Supreme Court verdict.
“The court conducts a judicial review; it is a non-partisan, independent and fair constitutional authority. The court’s verdict is final. It can’t be reviewed by anyone except by the court itself. How can a parliamentary committee go into the correctness or otherwise to what the court has said? Is a committee of politicians both legally and in terms of human resources capable of reviewing issues already decided by the Supreme Court?,” Mr. Jaitley said in a Facebook post.
His comments come a day before the BJP’s 70 press conferences on Rafale planned for Monday.
Beyond purview
“On areas such as procedure, offset suppliers and pricing, can a parliamentary committee take a different view of what the court has said? Can the contract be breached, nation’s security be compromised and the pricing data be made available to Parliament or its committee so that national interest is severely compromised with? This would be putting the price details of the weaponry in public domain,” the Minister said.
Mr. Jaitley recalled the experience of the previous JPC on a defence transaction.
“The B. Shankaranand Committee in 1987-88 went into the Bofors transaction. Since parliamentarians are always split on party lines, it came out with a finding that no kickbacks were paid and the monies paid to the middlemen were ‘winding up’ charges. At that time, only Win Chaddha appeared to be a middleman. But then others including Ottavio Quattrocchi, whose bank accounts got detected subsequently, were not entitled to any winding-up charges,” he said.
‘A cover-up exercise’
“The reports/documents published by Chitra Subramanium and N. Ram in The Hindu and all subsequent facts which came to light, conclusively established each fact mentioned in the JPC to be factually false. It became a cover-up exercise. After the Supreme Court has spoken the last word, it gets legitimacy. A political body can never come to a finding contrary to what the court has said.”
Mr. Jaitley dealt with the question of an expected CAG report on the Rafale deal.
“Defence transactions go to the CAG for an audit review. CAG recommendations go to Parliament and are referred to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) whose reports are then placed before Parliament. This was factually and accurately stated by the government before the Court,” he said, referring to a controversy on the accuracy of facts on the pending CAG report.
“The audit review of Rafale is pending before the CAG. All facts are shared with it. When its report is out, it will go to the PAC. Notwithstanding this factually correct statement made, if an ambiguity has emerged in the court order, the correct course is for anyone to apply/mention before the court and have it corrected,” he said.
He added: “The CAG review is not relevant to the final findings on procedure, pricing and offset suppliers. But bad losers never accept the truth. Having failed in multiple lies they have now started an innuendo about the Judgement. Having failed in their initial falsehood, the Congress is now manufacturing further lies about the Judgement.”
He claimed the Congress would prefer disruptions over discussion on Rafale during the current session of Parliament. “The judgement of the Supreme Court conclusively establishes the Congress Party’s vulnerabilities in a discussion on defence transactions. It will be a great opportunity to remind the nation of the legacy of the Congress Party and its defence acquisitions – a great opportunity indeed for some of us to speak,” Mr. Jaitley added.
