Centre Won’t Give Details Of Rafale Price to SC: Sources
Supreme Court asked the Centre to put forth the details of the 36 Rafale price India is buying from France, in a sealed cover within 10 days, a top government source told the TOI that government will file an affidavit expressing inability to do so given the need for utmost secrecy about weaponry and fitments of the fully-loaded fighters.
Government clears the stand about the Rafale Jet deal. The source told TOI that even Parliament was not informed about the price of a fully-loaded Rafale jet. Attorney general K K Venugopal maintained this stand before a bench led by CJI Justice Ranjan Gogoi when a petitioner said the Centre should not have difficulty in placing price and cost of Rafale jets in sealed cover before the SC as it had already informed Parliament about it.
According to TOI, what the government had informed Parliament was the price of basic frame of the Rafale jet and not the fully-loaded version of ‘made to order Rafale jet from Dassault under an inter-governmental agreement between India and France.
Note giving ‘details of the steps in the decision-making process leading to the award of 36 Rafale fighter jets’ to the Supreme Court was meant only for the judges’ eyes and the same note would not be handed over to the parties or petitioners. The SC direction to hand them over copy of the note would be complied with after redacting the note of sensitive and technical details, TOI mentioned.
Leaking the information about the Rafale Jet Airways is not good for County’s secrecy. ‘India is wary of technical details and capabilities as well as weaponry of Rafale jets getting leaked and hence attaches topmost secrecy to the deal. The moment anything about the price of Rafale jet is leaked, it would apprise the enemy countries about the weapons it is carrying and technical specification inducted into it as required by Indian Air Force keeping in mind the security scenario around India, he added.
The opposition has been attacking the Modi government for pruning the UPA deal for 126 Rafale jets to 36 fighter planes and yet paying a much higher cost per aircraft.
