The Supreme Court on Friday, December 14 rejected the petition calling for a judicial probe into the Rafale deal.
The court cannot compel the government to purchase 126 aircraft — the deal negotiated by the UPA government — or compare pricing details, the apex court bench, comprising of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and KM Joseph said.
The court specifically mentioned that “we, however, make it clear that our views as above are primarily from the standpoint of the exercise of the jurisdiction under Article 32 of the Constitution which has been invoked in the present group of cases.”
“The extent of permissible of judicial review with respect to contracts relating to defence procurements have to be decided on fact to fact basis,” the bench added.
While the petitioners claimed that the current price by the NDA government is much higher than the one that was being negotiated by the previous UPA government, the bench said it is not the job of the court to get into the comparative pricing details.
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Four petitions challenging the Rafale deal were filed in the Supreme Court — two by lawyers M L Sharma and Vineet Dhanda, one by AAP leader Sanjay Singh and a fourth by former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie and advocate Prashant Bhushan.
It is noteworthy that Modi government took action against Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Director Alok Verma and Special Director Rakesh Asthana just hours before the investigating agency chief was all set to start an investigation on Rafale deal. The apex court has not said that the case cannot be investigated by the CBI.