SC dismisses pleas seeking review of Rafale judgement

The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed a plea to reconsider its judgement on Rafale deal. It also dismissed a plea for registration of an FIR into the deal to buy Rafale fighter jets from France in 2016.

A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and K M Joseph found the review petitions as "without merit".

Justice Kaul, who authored the main judgement, said the plea for registration of FIR in the matter was already dealt with elaborately in the judgement passed on December 14, 2018.

Justice Joseph gave his separate and concurring verdict on a batch of review petitions and one joint verdict by former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha, Arun Shourie and activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan.

The court said it cannot lose sight of the fact that this was a inter-governmental contract, which was being negotiated for some time. It said this was not within the scope of Article 32 petition to seek registration of an FIR.

The petitioners sought a re-examination of the court's findings that there was no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets.

Three review petitions were filed by advocates M L Sharma and Vineet Dhanda and Aam Aadmi Party MP Sanjay Singh.