SC to hear in open court review petition against Rafale

The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered for an open court hearing on a couple of petitions seeking review of the December 14, 2018 judgement which had rejected a plea for probe into the 2016 deal from France to buy fighter jets.

A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and K M Joseph ordered for listing both the petitions-- one filed jointly by former Union Ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie and advocate Prashant Bhushan and another one by AAP MP Sanjay Singh.

The top court had on December 14, 2018, said, "We find no reason for any intervention on the sensitive issue of purchase of 36 defence aircraft by the Indian Government. Perception of individuals cannot be the basis of a fishing and roving enquiry by this court, especially in such matters."

According to the Supreme Court rules, review petitions are taken up by the same combination of judges in chambers through circulations of papers sans counsel.

With the Tuesday's order, the petitioners have now to argue on "error apparent on the face of records" to convince the court for reconsideration of the judgment which had then come as a great relief for the Narendra Modi government which faced a barrage of attack from Congress party for not disclosing the price of 36 fighter jets and favouring Anil Ambani's company for offset contract.

Notably, the Union government has also filed an application for "correction or modification" of the judgement which had stated the redacted portion of the Comptroller and Auditor General's report had been put before Parliament and in public domain.

Besides review petition, advocate Bhushan also filed a plea seeking perjury action against the senior officers of the Union government for "misleading" the court on CAG report.

On Tuesday, the court ordered both the review petitions would be listed along with two applications in open court hearing.

The date of hearing in the matter has not yet been declared.