The Congress on Sunday urged the Supreme Court to recall its Rafale judgment and issue notices to the Centre for contempt of court and perjury, alleging the government had provided false information to the court.
“We demand that the Supreme Court immediately recall that judgment, which is void. It would be in the interest of the dignity of the Supreme Court to do so, because this entire episode has dented the dignity of the highest court, which cannot be allowed,” senior Congress leader Anand Sharma told reporters.
“It is important that the Supreme Court issues a notice of perjury to the government and the officials and law officers concerned. The Supreme Court must also issue a contempt notice to the government.”
The apex court had on Friday dismissed a batch of petitions that questioned the Rafale deal on the grounds of irregularities over the decision-making, pricing and the choice of Indian offset partner.
A three-judge bench headed by the Chief Justice said there was no reason to “really doubt the decision-making process”.
The judgment contained a paragraph that said a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General on the aircraft deal had been examined by the public accounts committee of Parliament and that a part of it had been submitted in Parliament. Neither of this was true.
After the Congress raised a storm over this, highlighting that no CAG report on the deal had been sent to the House committee, the government on Saturday accepted the errors but blamed it on a grammatical misunderstanding.
It approached the apex court seeking a correction to the judgment, saying “misinterpretation” of its note had “resulted in a controversy in the public domain”.
The Centre claimed its note to the court had said the CAG report “is” examined by the House panel and that a redacted version of the report “is” placed before Parliament and in the public domain, referring to the general procedure.
It argued the court had misinterpreted this and replaced the first “is” with “has been” and the second with “was” in the judgment. The government has not explained why it did not use the future tense “will be” instead of “is”, which could have averted any misunderstanding.
On Sunday, the Congress insisted that the government had presented “wrong facts” before the court and asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP to “seek penance and take a dip in the holy Ganga”.
Sharma said there was no ground for the apex court to even consider the government’s petition to amend the judgment.
He accused the Centre of “misleading” the court and committing “a grave act of the breach of privilege of Parliament, which is sovereign”. He said the government’s conduct and credentials were “under a dark shadow”.
“The government, therefore, is guilty of breaching the privileges of all the members of Parliament by having claimed that the CAG has examined and given its report which has been further scrutinised by the PAC… all of (which) is false,” he said.
“We have urged the Supreme Court that it has become imperative without any delay to recall (the judgment) and issue notices to the government. Parliament is in session and the government surely is in the dock….”
Sharma said the Congress had consistently argued that the Supreme Court was not the right forum to investigate issues relating to the Rafale deal, and the court itself had now agreed.
“The Supreme Court judgment is not only self-contradictory, but we are shocked to find factual inaccuracies. And the averments that were made, (and the) submissions of the government, were false,” he said.
Sharma said that what had happened was “unprecedented” and that the government’s curative petition on Saturday “adds insult to the injury caused”.
