The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed Rafale review petitions against its December 14, 2018 judgement upholding the Rs 58,000 crore fighter jet deal.
The top court has dismissed petitions seeking a review of its judgment refusing a CBI investigation into the Rafale fighter jet deal with French firm Dassault Aviation and giving the government a clean chit.
The review petitions were being heard by a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and comprising Justices SK Kaul and KM Joseph.
Dismissing the review petitions, the court said, “We cannot lose sight of the fact we are dealing with contract pending with the government for long. Prayer made by the petitioner was for registration of FIR and CBI enquiry. This is not a fresh examination as they were considered earlier on merit.”
The Supreme Court had reserved its order on the review petitions this May.
Three petitioners, former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie and activist-lawyer Prashant Bhushan had claimed in the Supreme Court that the Centre played fraud upon the court to obtain favourable order in the Rafale fighter jet case.
The petitioners filed a rejoinder stating the December 14, 2018 verdict should be subjected to a review as it was based on “multiple falsehoods and suppression of material and relevant information”.
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 seeking court-monitored probe into Rafale fighter jet deal, saying that there was no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the deal. The top court had also said that it was not its job to go into the issue of pricing of fighter planes.