The Supreme Court will pronounce its verdict on Wednesday in the Rafale review petitions on preliminary objections raised by the Central government. The judgment will be pronounced by a bench of Chief Justice Rajan Gogoi, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice KM Joseph.
Earlier on Thursday, the Supreme Court said it will first decide on the preliminary objections raised by the Centre that the documents on which it was claiming ‘privilege’ cannot be relied upon to re-examine the verdict in the Rafale fighter jet deal with France.
Claiming privilege over documents pertaining to the Rafale fighter jet deal with France, Attorney General KK Venugopal had said that those documents cannot be considered in evidence as per Section 123 of the Indian Evidence Act.
He contended that no one can produce them in the court without the permission of the department concerned as those documents are also protected under the Official Secrets Act and there disclosure is exempted under the Right to Information Act as per Section 8(1)(a).
The Centre objected to the admissibility of those documents annexed by former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie as also activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan in their review petition against the top court’s December 14 judgement dismissing all petitions against the Rafale jet deal.
The top court had further noted that according to the AG’s submissions “there are three Rafale documents whose publication comes under Official Secrets Act, 1923. These documents were unauthorisedly published. You claim privilege under section 123 of Evidence Act. You want us to adjudicate and strike down the review on this basis”.
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