The Government of India on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that documents related to Rafale aircraft deal have been stolen from the Defence Ministry and the petitioners seeking a review of its verdict dismissing all pleas against the purchase of the jets relied upon those documents.
According to Press Trust of India, a three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices S K Kaul and K M Joseph began the open court hearing during which former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie and advocate Prashant Bhushan, who had jointly filed the petition, alleged that the Centre suppressed crucial facts when the apex court decided to dismiss the batch of PILs against the Rafale deal in December.
When Bhushan referred to an article written by senior journalist N Ram in The Hindu newspaper, Attorney General K K Venugopal opposed it, saying his write-ups were based on stolen documents and an investigation into the theft is on.
“When Bofors was exposed by The Hindu, the Opposition had questioned Rajiv Gandhi. When Rafale was exposed by The Hindu, the government questioned The Hindu.” Piece by @KapilSibal worth a read. Democracy endangered by government and media https://t.co/Wk4LEf8tV5
— Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) March 6, 2019
Venugopal said the first write up by the senior journalist appeared in The Hindu on February 8 and there is also a story in Wednesday’s edition which was aimed at influencing the proceedings and that amounts to contempt of court.
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On September 23, 2016, India and France signed a deal under which New Delhi would procure 36 Rafale fighter jets worth Rs 59,000 crore from Paris.
Later that year, Reliance Defence joined the the offset programme of the Rafale deal through Dassault Reliance Aerospace Ltd, in which it holds a 51% stake.
Dassault Aviation, which manufactured the jets, owns 49%. Reliance and Dassault announced a joint venture in India in October 2016.
The film Reliance Entertainment part-produced with Gayet’s firm, Rouge International, was titled Tout La-Haut. It was released in France on December 20, 2017. It was never released in India.
