New Delhi: The Prime Minister Office (PMO) on Saturday submitted an affidavit to the Supreme Court refusing the allegation that the Centre is in parallel talks with the French government on Rafale.
The Prime Minister Office (PMO) did “monitor” the progress of the Rafale fighter aircraft purchase deal, but this did not translate to conducting “parallel negotiations” with the French side, the Union government told the Supreme Court.
The petitions were filed by former union minister Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie and senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan which alleged PM Modi to be involved with the French for the off-the-shelf purchase of 36 Rafale jets manufactured by Dassault Aviation even as the Indian Negotiation Team was in the process of detailed talks with their French counterparts.
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The 13 paged affidavits said, “The monitoring of the progress by PMO of this Government to Government process cannot be construed as interference or parallel negotiations.”
The defence ministry in its affidavit also stated slammed the petitioners and said, “Attempting to bring out internal processing of this Government-to-Government procurement and trying to present a selective and incomplete picture of the same.”
“The decisions by the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), the highest decision making body in the Government on defense matters and also by Defense Acquisition Council (DAC), the highest decision making body in Ministry of Defense have been made keeping in view all the facts of the case and the critical operational necessity of Indian Air Force,” the affidavit added.
The defense ministry slammed the petitioners of trying to link unrelated issues and create controversies on the basis of certain media reports. There was no relation whatsoever between the French government giving allowance to a subsidiary of an Anil Ambani company and the Rafale deal.