The Central Government has come under cloud for allegedly misleading the Supreme Court by claiming that it had placed the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report on the Rafale jet deal before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament.
Congress president Rahul Gandhi along with Yashwant Sinha, Arun Shourie and Prashant Bhusan, the three PIL petitioners in the Supreme court against Rafale deal, on Friday pointed out that no such CAG report was ever placed in Parliament or before the PAC.
At a Press conference, Rahul said the Supreme Court in its verdict cited a report by the CAG on the Rafale deal was submitted to the PAC but asserted that no such report was given to the House panel headed by Congress’ leader in Lok Sabha Mallikarjuna Kharge. Kharge, who was also present at the briefing, said the PAC has not received any such report.
“Where has that report gone? Is it with some other PAC that PM Modi has set up,” Rahul asked in a dig at the Government. Both the Government and Anil Ambani’s Reliance Group have rejected Rahul Gandhi’s allegation of wrongdoings.
Rahul again accused the Modi Government of destroying “all institutions” and asserted that corruption to the tune of Rs 30,000 crore has taken place in the Rafale deal.
He reiterated the Congress’ demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the fighter jet deal and claimed that if it was conducted, names of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and businessman Anil Ambani will come to the fore.
In a joint statement, Sinha, Shourie and Bhusan said the judgment is based on completely false information. “Shocked that the judgment is based on completely false information about the CAG report. No CAG report on Rafale has been submitted or examined,” the trio said adding that this scandal would continue to agitate public mind. They also pointed out that the judgment also made errors like Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance is shown as parent company of Anil Ambani.
“The court mentions in para 25 that “The pricing details have, however, been shared with the CAG, and the report of the CAG has been examined by the PAC. Only a redacted portion of the report was placed before Parliament, and is in public domain”.
“All the facts mentioned above are neither on record nor factually correct. The PAC judgment has not been submitted to the Public Accounts Committee and no portion of the CAG report has been placed before Parliament or placed in the public domain. Obviously this factually incorrect statement must be based on some communication (not on record and unknown to us) made by the Government to the court. That the court has relied on such communication which is factually incorrect on 3 counts shows how dangerous it is for the court to rely on statements made in a sealed cover (not subject to scrutiny or verification) and give its judgement on that basis,” the petitioners said in a detailed statement.