JOIN USSC agrees to hear fresh plea for probe into Rafale deal
The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a fresh petition for a probe into the 2016 Rafale fighters jet deal on the basis of "new revelations" by a French portal that claimed manufacturer Dassault Aviation paid approximately one million Euros to middlemen.
A bench of Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian said that the matter would be posted for hearing after weeks as per the rules.
The court passed its order on a mentioning for urgent listing by petitioner, advocate M L Sharma.
In his petition, Sharma made the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Sushen Mohan Gupta of Defsys Solutions Pvt Ltd, and Dassault Reliance Aerospace Limited (DRAL) as parties in the matter.
The top court had earlier on December 14, 2018 dismissed a batch of petitions, including by Sharma, seeking probe into the deal, and also rejected the review petitions against the judgement on November 14, 2019.
In his plea, Sharma sought a direction of the court for registration of FIR against the accused persons under Sections 420 (Cheating), 120-B (Criminal Conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), along with for offences with Prevention of Corruption Act.
He alleged that certain accused persons had illegally engaged themselves to secure secret papers from the defence ministry to secure the Rafale deal on September 23, 2016.
He said the cause of action arose on April 5, 2021 as an investigation report by the AFA (France CAG) declared that Dassault gave one million euros to middlemen of India as bribe.
Agence Française Anticorruption (AFA) functioned in a capacity similar to India’s Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), with the aim of checking whether large companies implemented the anti-corruption procedures. However, unlike the CAG, the AFA also audited private firms. In its report, the AFA did disclose corruption in the Rafale deal, he claimed.
He sought an independent probe into the case under the supervision of the top court for prosecution of the accused.
The petitioner sought a direction for cancelling the 2016 agreement for purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets from Dassault France for the alleged "fraud, corruption and the offence under the Official Secret Act".
He also contended that a direction must be issued by the court to recover the entire advance money with penalty and to blacklist the Dassault Aviation in future defence deals.