SC 'judgment' on Rafale is erroneous, says Congress

Hyderabad: Congress senior leader and TPCC Treasurer Gudur Narayana Reddy reiterated that the Supreme Court judgement on Rafale deal was full of errors and it does not amount to clean chit to Prime Minister Narender Modi.

Gudur Narayana Reddy, in a media statement on Tuesday, pointed out that the SC judgment was not drafted independently and it contains several paragraphs directly copied from the note submitted by the Central Government in a sealed cover. He said that the Supreme Court overlooked several glaring mistakes and simply endorsed the stand of PM Modi on Rafale deal. He pointed out that the note submitted in the Supreme Court in a sealed cover was not a sworn affidavit and it was not even signed by anyone or bore any date. However, by setting aside the convention and rules, the Supreme Court accepted it, he said.

Gudur Narayana Reddy said that the Supreme Court dismissed petitions seeking an investigation into the Rafale purchase without answering the basic questions which have turned the deal controversial. He said the SC was silent on why the price of Rafale aircraft was escalated that directly benefitted Anil Ambani. It was also silent on why the number of aircrafts was reduced from 126 to just 36. The SC judgment only reiterated official stance on pricing and did not elaborate on why PM Modi's smaller deal of buying just 36 aircrafts was costlier than the original larger bid made by Dassault in 2012 for 126 aircrafts.

The Congress leader said that the Supreme Court has completely downplayed French President Francois Hollande's statement that France was forced to assign Rafale contract to Anil Ambani. He said that Supreme Court judgment tried to legitimise the controversial Rafale deal by wrongly mentioning that the pricing of Rafale has been shared with CAG and PAC. "The pricing details have, however, been shared with the Comptroller and Auditor General (hereinafter referred to as “CAG”), and the report of the CAG has been examined by the Public Accounts Committee (hereafter referred to as “PAC”). Only a redacted portion of the report was placed before the Parliament, and is in public domain," the SC said on Page 25 of its judgment.

Gudur Narayana Reddy pointed out that no such CAG report has been made public nor was it examined by the PAC and no portion has been placed in the Parliament or in public domain. He said that it was highly regrettable that the Supreme Court delivered its judgement based on a factually incorrect and misleading note submitted by the BJP Government. Further, he said it was highly shameful that the BJP leaders tried to mislead the entire nation by misusing the Supreme Court.