The Supreme Court on Wednesday dealt a blow to the Centre’s Narendra Modi government by allowing admissibility of three documents in reviewing its own order that gave a clean chit to the Centre in the much-talked-about Rafale case. The Supreme Court unanimously dismissed the Modi government’s preliminary objections on the privileged documents.
The Supreme Court, according to the news agency ANI, also allowed the admissibility of three documents in the Rafale deal as evidence in re-examining the review petitions filed against the top court’s 14 December judgement refusing to order a probe in the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France.
The Supreme Court Bench comprising Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi, Justices SK Kaul and KM Joseph said that it will now go ahead with the hearing of review petitions in the light of new documents cited by petitioners alleging wrongdoing in the Rafale deal. The bench, however, said that it will fix a new date for a fresh hearing on the Rafale case.
The timing of this development couldn’t have been worse given that India goes to polls tomorrow. The first phase of the seven-phase elections will be held on 11 April. Modi, when asked about the Rafale scam and his dubious role, had told ABP News that even the Supreme Court had given him a clean chit.
Last month, in a sensational development , the Narendra Modi government had told the Supreme Court that documents related to the Rafale deal were stolen from the ministry of defence. Attorney General KK Venugopal had said that documents relating to the Rafale deal, which advocate Prashant Bhushan has been relying on, were stolen from the ministry of defence.