New Delhi: The Supreme Court of India has approved a plea to be heard in the next week, as the plea seeks a stay on the Rafale fighter jet deal between India and France.
A bench of the apex court consisting Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud agreed to hear the plea filed by advocate ML Shama for urgent hearing.
In the filed petition, Mr. Sharma has alleged that the deal of Rafale fighter jet with France was not a fair one with discrepancies in it and sought a stay on it.
Mr. Sharma also claimed in the plea that the deal between the governments of India and France for 36 Rafale fighter jets needs to be declared as invalid for the reason that it was an “outcome of corruption” and not ratified by Parliament under Article 253 (Parliament has the power to make any law for implementing any inter-government agreement) of the Constitution.
Apart from that, the petition also sought FIR registration along with prosecution of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, former defense Minister and present Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, business tycoon Anil Ambani. And for French armament firm Dassault, the petition seeks the recovery of the amount.
In March this year, a similar type of plea was filed in Supreme Court to seek an independent probe into the Rafale deal and also the disclosure of the total cost involved in the deal before Parliament.
The Plea was filed by Congress leader Tehseen S Poonawalla, who had sought issuance of direction in this regard against the Centre questioning the reason for not seeking Union Cabinet’s approval as part of the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) before signing the procurement deal with France on September 23, 2016.
The governments of India and France had signed defence agreements for the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter aircraft in a fly-away condition in order to upgrade Indian Air Force equipment.
The Rafale fighter jet is manufactured by the French aerospace company Dassault Aviation and it is a twin-engine Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA).
Indian Air Force had floated a tender in August 2007 and advanced a proposal to buy 126 fighter aircraft. After this, IAF sent an invitation for the bidding process to various aviation companies.
According to the claim made by Mr. Poonawalla in his plea, the Ministry of Defence had withdrawn the 2007 tender for procurement of 126 fighter planes, while the proposed buying of 36 Rafale fighter aircraft was a fresh procurement deal.
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