Centre suppressed facts in Rafale, SC told

Former Union Ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie and advocate Prashant Bhushan on Thursday told the Supreme Court the Centre has continued to suppress facts and mislead on the 2016 Rafale fighter jet deals from France.

In an affidavit, the three petitioners who sought reconsideration of the December 14, 2018 judgement, alleging that was obtained on "multiple falsehoods and suppression of material and relevant information".

"It is clear that the government misled the court on various counts in the notes that were submitted in a sealed cover. The government has also suppressed material and relevant information from the court and obtained the impugned judgement on the basis of fraud played upon the court by the government," they said.

They said even now the government was not disclosing that contrary to what was submitted in the sealed covers, the Cabinet Committee on Security met once again in the month of September 2016 to inter alia drop standard clauses which are meant to ensure probity, transparency and check corruption.

They further contended the CAG report concedes that waiver of bank guarantees was saving for Dassault and yet it failed to account for the impact of the same when stating that the 36 aircraft procurement was 2.86 per cent cheaper than the 126 aircraft procurement.