Noted Supreme Court lawyer and activist of the Swaraj Abhiyan Prashant Bhushan referred Rafael defense aircraft deal with France as unprecedented in the history of the country. Bhushan also charged the ruling dispensation for overlooking the necessity of the armed forces while compromising it the security of the nation.
Bhushan went on equating the fighter jet deal with the Bofors gun deal saying the previous was involving only four per cent or Rs 64 crore. “Bofors was also Government to Government deal. The Rafael has crossed all the limits. It is 500 times bigger than that. Government worked to favor Reliance Defense who is pocketing Rs 21000 crore without doing anything, as per their own claims. It is obvious that the money is going to be used for paying bribes,” said the lawyer addressing the Press on Saturday.
He went ahead blaming the Government for speaking many lies to hoodwink it’s deeds. Referring to the reply given by the Government in the lok Sabha, Bhushan said that price and specifications were made public way back in 2016.
“It is ludicrous that the Government is telling one lie after another to save their face. Thier own answers quoted the price of one aircraft at RS 670 crore along with all requisite equipments but now they say that making price public would be violation of the agreement between India and France. Earlier statement of Reliance Defense said that it is partnering with ‘Dassault’ as offset production agency but now they say they are not aware of the deal and its provisions. First they said it Rs 670 crore later said Rs1600 crore for each plane,” said Bhushan.
He added due to bringing down number of aircraft from originally agreed 126 to 36 which was done without taking the Defense Minister or Chief of the Air Force into confidence, has seriously compromised security preparedness of the country and placed it much behind China as also found out by a Parliament committee.
At the same time he expressed wish of a lokpal which could have been crucial in this case. “Moving to court is not always beneficial, especially when you have situation like this. We have seen what happened to the ‘Sahara-Birla diary’ case despite having tonnes of evidences. Court’s fairness is for everyone to see now-a-days. You have seen the Supreme Court judges expressing their ire before the media. We are not feeling confident about approaching the court which may be under intense political pressure since the case is question of life and death for the Government,” said Bhushan who lauded role of thr Congress in raising the matter.
He also alleged the Government for suppressing people’s right along with the media freedom and also talked about mob violence and use of Government machinery, especially to target social activists, political opponents and even poor tribals who stand up between bog corporate houses and their right over land and forest.