Rafale LIVE: The Supreme Court has reserved its order on whether it would examine the documents submitted by Prashant Bhushan and others in the review petitions filed in the Rafale deal. The government has argued these documents are privileged and cannot be produced in court without its permission. The petitioners, on the other hand, have argued that not everything can be brushed aside in the name of national security.
Attorney General K K Venugopal, appearing for the Centre, referred to section 123 of the Evidence Act and provisions of RTI Act to buttress his claim. But Justice Joseph said RTI Act applies for even sensitive information in cases of corruption and human rights violation, rejecting the government arguments. The A-G has urged the court to remove the leaked-out pages from the review petitions since the government is claiming privilege over these documents.
The top court had in December dismissed petitions alleging that the government had gone for an overpriced deal to help Anil Ambani’s company bag an offset contract with jet-maker Dassault. A day before the crucial hearing, the Centre on Wednesday told the top court that documents attached in the review petitions are sensitive to national security and those who conspired in photocopying the papers have committed theft.
The affidavit, filed by the ministry of defence, asks the court to reject the petitions and states that leakage of documents on the fighter jet deal from the ministry through photocopying amounted to theft. It claimed that the documents are sensitive to national security as they relate to war capacity of the combat aircraft.
In the affidavit, the government said the review plea filed by former union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie as also activist advocate Prashant Bhushan has been widely circulated and is available to the country’s enemy and adversaries.
“This puts the national security in jeopardy. Without consent, permission or acquiescence of the Central Government, those who have conspired in making the photocopy of these sensitive documents and annexing it to the review petition/ miscellaneous application and thereby committing theft by unauthorized photocopying of such documents…have adversely affected the sovereignty, security and friendly relations with the foreign countries,” the affidavit said.
It said that even though the Centre “maintains secrecy”, the review petitioners are “guilty of leakage of sensitive information, which offends the terms of the agreements”.
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