The government on Saturday filed a fresh affidavit in the Supreme Court in the Rafale case, opposing the reopening of the whole matter by contending that the petitioners were attempting to get “a fishing and roving inquiry ordered”.

The government said the top court has “specifically declined” to have a “fishing and roving inquiry” into the matter “based on perceptions of individuals”.

The Centre in its affidavit said that monitoring of progress by the PMO cannot be construed as interference or parallel negotiations.

The Centre also stated that the “then Hon’ble Raksha Mantri had recorded on file that …’ it appears that PMO and French President’s office are monitoring the progress of the issues which was an outcome of the summit meeting’.”

The Congress had questioned why the PM Modi Modi was not being probed for holding parallel negotiations in the Rafale deal.

The affidavit, filed by Joint Secretary and Acquisition Manager in the Defence Ministry on behalf of the government said the application filed by petitioners, former Union Minister Yashwant Sinha and others, for reopening the case is “misconceived and not maintainable”.

“It is submitted that in the garb of seeking review of the judgement (of last December), and placing reliance on some media reports and some incomplete internal file notings procured unauthorisedly and illegally, the petitioners cannot seek to reopen the whole matter by asking for production of documents in review petition since the scope of review petition itself is extremely limited,” the affidavit said.

The Supreme Court had on Tuesday issued a formal notice to the Centre on the review petitions filed against the December 14, 2018 judgment on the Rafale deal.

The top court had asked the Centre to file its response by Saturday, May 4 while posting the matter for hearing on Monday, May 6.

Attorney General KK Venugopal, representing the government, had sought four weeks time to file a reply on the review which the court refused.

A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court had on 10 April admitted three documents connected to the Dassault Rafale fighter jet deal as evidence in the review petitions and dismissed the Centre’s “preliminary objections” to them.

In the order, the bench of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and Justices SK Kaul and KM Joseph was unanimous that the review petitions should be heard in their own merit.

The Supreme Court on December 14 last year gave a clean chit to the Centre on the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France.

A three-Judge bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi dismissed all the petitions and said that no probe was required.