Rejecting demand for a parliamentary panel probe into the fighter jet Rafale deal, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Sunday described the Congress as “bad losers”, saying that the Supreme Court had the last word on the issue and there could not be a contrary verdict by a political body.
The Finance Minster said the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG)’s view on the deal is not relevant after the Supreme Court’s clean chit to the Government.
Citing a wash-out of four day’s proceedings in Parliament, Jaitley said the Opposition Congress will prefer disruptions in Parliament over discussion on Rafale during the remainder of the Session.
The Congress, which was not a petitioner before the apex court, has sought the multi-crore Rafale deal to be referred to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to go into the price arrived at by the BJP Government versus the one negotiated by the previous UPA regime, as also how billionaire Anil Ambani’s group with virtually no experience in manufacture of fighter jets was selected as an offset partner for the deal.
The Congress has alleged that the French Government was pressurised by the Modi Government to include Ambani group as the offset partner as the deal makes it obligatory on the part of the selling country to offer 50 per cent of total business to domestic Indian players.
“After the Supreme Court has spoken the last word, it gets legitimacy. A political body can never come to a finding contrary to what the court has said,” Jaitley wrote in a Facebook blog, titled ‘Rafale - Lies, Shortlived lies and now further lies?’.
On the Congress claiming ‘ambiguity’ in the Supreme Court judgment said the deal has been examined by the CAG and is now before Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Jaitley said Defence transactions go to the CAG for an audit review, which then are referred to the PAC.
“This was factually and accurately stated by the Government before the court. The audit review of Rafale is pending before the CAG. All facts are shared with it. When its report is out, it will go to the PAC. Notwithstanding this factually correct statement made, if an ambiguity has emerged in the Court Order, the correct course is for anyone to apply/ mention before the court and have it corrected,” he said.
The correct picture has been presented to court and it must now be left to the wisdom of the court to state at which stage the CAG review is pending. “The CAG review is not relevant to the final findings on procedure, pricing and offset suppliers. But bad losers never accept the truth. Having failed in multiple lies they have now started an innuendo about the Judgement,” he said.
Jaitley said the Congress, having failed in their initial falsehood, is now “manufacturing further lies about the judgement.”
“On facts it lied. The judgement of the Supreme Court conclusively establishes the Congress party’s vulnerabilities in a discussion on Defence transactions.
“It will be a great opportunity to remind the nation of the legacy of the Congress Party and its Defence acquisitions - a great opportunity indeed for some of us to speak,” he wrote.
The Finance Minister, who had alongside the Defence Minister led a spirited counter-attack against the Congress on Friday post the Supreme Court ruling, said the opponents of the Rafale deal had a choice of forum to present their side, and they chose the Supreme Court.
“The court conducts a judicial review, it is a non-partisan, independent and a fair Constitutional authority. The court’s verdict is final. It can’t be reviewed by anyone except by the court itself,” he said. ?
Ruling out setting up a JPC to go into the deal, Jaitley said, “How can a Parliamentary Committee go into the correctness or otherwise to what the court said. Is a Committee of Politicians both legally and in terms of human resources capable of reviewing issues already decided by the Supreme Court?”
“On areas such as procedure, offset suppliers and pricing, can a Parliamentary Committee take a different view of what the court has said?,” he said, asking if a contract be breached, nation’s security be compromised and the pricing data be made available to Parliament or its panel.
He asked what was the experience of JPC when it took up the Bofors deal — the only occasion when it investigated a Defence transaction.