Supreme Court to hear fresh PIL seeking probe into Rafale deal
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Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a Public Interest Litigation(PIL) seeking inquiry into the Rafale deal in view of new revelations by a French media portal that the aircraft manufacturers, Dassault Aviation, had paid 1 million Euros to a middleman in India.
The petition filed by Advocate Manohar Lal Sharma is completely based on the new revelations of the French portal and it was prayed that the Apex Court take cognizance of the news report.
According to a LiveLaw report, without mentioning what the case was about, Sharma said that he was making a request for the listing of a new petition filed by him before the retirement of CJI Bobde on April 23.
The CJI said that the Court will hear the case urgently without giving any specific date. According to reports, the Court might hear the case after two weeks.
Dassault Aviation has already denied the allegations in the report of the French portal and said there was no corruption or irregularities in the deal.
Sharma had earlier filed a writ petition in 2018 seeking enquiry into the Rafale deal, which was dismissed in December 2018.
Later, in November 2019, the Supreme Court dismissed review petitions that had been filed against the December 14, 2018 judgement which declined to order a probe into the corruption allegations regarding the deal to procure 36 Rafale jets by Indian Government from the French company Dassault Aviation.