In a major development in the much publicised Rafale fighter jet case, the Supreme Court today dismissed objections raised by the government to consider documents ‘stolen’ from the Defence Ministry as evidence.
Just a day before the first phase of Lok Sabha elections are to start, the BJP led government was in for a surprise. What turned out to be a big setback for them, the Supreme Court ruled that the Defence Ministry files are admissible evidence. The apex court said that the Rafale review petitions will be heard on merit and that they will decide the date later when the hearings will be administered.
“We dismiss the preliminary objection raise by Union of India questioning the maintainability of the review petition,” a bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices S K Kaul and K M Joseph said.
The petitions were filed by former BJP leader Yashwant Sinha, journalist-turned-politician Arun Shourie and well known lawyer Prashant Bhushan.
On the pretext that the documents submitted by the petitioners were ‘unauthorizedly photocopied’, the government had sought removal of the documents from the case, arguing that the security of the nation superseded everything else. The centre had told the Apex Court that the documents filed by the petitioners were sensitive to national security and those who had conspired in photocopying the papers had committed theft hence putting national security in danger after leaking them to the public.
Also Read: 2019 Lok Sabha polls: Here’s all you need to know about…
The court dismissed that argument and said that the concept of confidentiality has undergone a change since the Right To Information Act was put in place.
Petitioner Prashant Bhushan maintained that “if a document is relevant in deciding a fact, how it was obtained becomes irrelevant”.
In its hearing last month, the Supreme Court had said, “According to you (the centre), these documents affect national security and court should not interfere… we have to consider it under the RTI act”. “In cases of corruption and human rights violations, even sensitive organisations have to disclose information under RTI,” said the court led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi.