Rahul questions SC clean chit to Rafale deal

Hours after the Supreme Court gave a clean chit to the BJP government on the Rafale deal, Congress president Rahul Gandhi questioned the very foundations of the judgement and launched a sharp attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Rahul read out a paragraph from the Supreme Court judgement that mentioned that the details of pricing of the Rafale jets were shared with the Comptroller and Auditor General and the report of the CAG had been examined by Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

“The basic foundation of the Supreme Court judgement is the CAG report. The PAC Chairman has not seen the CAG report. But, the court has seen the report! Where is the CAG report? Show us,” the Congress president said.

Congress stuck to its demand for having a Joint Parliamentary Committee investigation into the Rafale deal.

“The entire country knows that the chowkidar chor hai... no matter how much you try to hide it, the truth will come out. You can hide as much as you want, you can run as long as you wish, but you cannot be saved. The day Rafale matter will be probed and it will be by a JPC, two names will come forward, Narendra Modi and Anil Ambani,” he said.

Both government and Anil Ambani's Reliance Group have rejected Rahul's allegations of any wrongdoing.

PAC Chairman Mallikarjun Kharge, who was also present at the press conference, said that the committee has not received any such report from the CAG.

“Where has that report gone? Is it with some other PAC that PM Modi has set up,” he asked and demanded to know who told the Court that the PAC had examined the CAG report.

“I asked the Deputy CAG, how did this happen? Were my signatures forged? When the report is not with the CAG, the question of PAC having the report does not arise,” Kharge said.