The Supreme Court will on April 10 pronounce its verdict on five Rafale review petitions, chiefly on two preliminary issues - the admissibility of “stolen” Rafale documents as evidence and the claim of privilege raised on them by the government.
The case was heard by a Bench of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and K.M. Joseph. It was reserved on March 14. The causelist shows judgements listed in the names of both Chief Justice Gogoi and Justice Joseph. It is to be seen whether the judgement would concur or dissent with each other.
The review petitions were filed against a December 14, 2018 judgement of the Supreme Court upholding the 36 Rafale jets' deal.
The government, represented by Attorney-General K.K. Venugopal, had contended that the review petition should be dismissed at the preliminary stage itself because they were based on "stolen" documents published in newspapers like The Hindu .
The government wanted the court to refrain from examining the documents, which have already been published in the media, on the Rafale purchase. It claimed the documents were unauthorisedly photocopied from the originals kept in the Ministry of Defence and sneaked into the public domain.
The government said national security was at stake and the leak of the documents amounted to offences under the Official Secrets Act.
The Centre had explained that the disclosure of Rafale prices had upset a "solemn undertaking" given to France to keep the price of the jets a secret.
But Justice Joseph had countered the government version by drawing the latter's attention to ask the Right to Information Act (RTI) of 2005. The judge said the information law has revolutionised governance and overpowered notions of secrecy protected under the Official Secrets Act (OSA) of 1923.
On the last day of hearing, Justice Joseph made Mr. Venugopal read out Section 22 of the RTI Act, which declared RTI to have an “overriding effect” over OSA. Then Section 24, which mandates even security and intelligence organisations to disclose information on corruption and human rights violations. Finally, Section 8(2), which compels the government to disclose information “if public interest in disclosure outweighs the harm to protected interests”.
Mr. Venugopal had defended that defence purchases dealt with the security of the State, which “supercedes everything else”.
To this, Justice Joseph had said “the Parliament has passed the RTI Act in 2005 and brought about a complete revolution, a complete change, let us not go back to what it was”.
In a Parthian shot as the court finally wrapped up the hearing, review petitioner and former union minister Arun Shourie, who was accompanied by his former colleague Yashwant Sinha, said the government’s claims that the Rafale documents were stolen proved that they were genuine.
PTI adds:
‘Govt. playing with national security: Sitaram Yechury
CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Tuesday lashed out at the government over reports of waiver given in the Rafale deal to two foreign defence companies and accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of “playing” with national security.
The government had not only acquired less number of fighter jets than what IAF required, but also did favours to its cronies in the deal, he said.
