Regarding Rafale deal, there are four petitions in court. (File)
The Supreme Court will next Tuesday decide on the petitions on whether its verdict giving the centre a clean chit on the Rafale jet deal should be reviewed. The petition will be heard in chambers and not in open court.
On Thursday, Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi had said that he would have to constitute a bench of different composition of judges to hear all the petitions. "It has to be examined. Let me see," he had said.
There are four petitions including one by the government for the correction of an error in the verdict. The centre wants a correction in the part where the verdict says the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG)'s report on the Rafale deal was placed before parliament; the report was put out after that, in the session that ended on February 13.
A petition by lawyer Prashant Bhushan seeks action against the officers who had "misled" the court by claiming that the auditor had already submitted a report to parliament. Mr Bhushan also asks in another petition for the court to review its order that the government followed the decision-making process in the deal with France for 36 Rafale jets.
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Sanjay Singh has also requested a review.
In December, the Supreme Court said there was no reason to doubt the decision-making process behind the Rafale case amid Congress allegations of corruption in the 2016 jet deal.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi had dealt with "three broad areas of concern" raised in the petitions - the decision making process, pricing and the choice of Indian offset partners - and said there was no reason for intervention by the court on the "sensitive issue" of purchase of 36 jets. It had said the Air Force needs advanced fighter jets as the country cannot afford to be "unprepared" or "under prepared" in a situation where adversaries have acquired fourth and fifth generation fighter aircraft, "of which, we have none".
Petitions alleging that the government had gone for an overpriced deal to help Anil Ambani's company bag an offset contract with jet-maker Dassault also didn't wash with the top court, which dismissed the need for a probe and said: "There is no evidence of commercial favouritism to any private entity."
With inputs from PTI
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