India has signed a deal for 36 Rafale fighter jets with France (File)
The Supreme Court will today deliver its verdict on a clutch of petitions demanding a court-monitored investigation into the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France, in a deal worth Rs 59,000 crore. The court will also decide whether the government followed the right procedure in inking the deal.
Following are the top 10 developments in this big story:
The verdict will be declared at 10:30 am by a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi. The court had, in its last hearing on November 14, reserved the verdict.
The Congress has accused the government of corruption and crony capitalism, alleging that the centre scrapped a deal for 126 Rafale jets negotiated by the previous UPA government and opted for a not-so-lucrative new contract for 36 jets just to help Anil Ambani's debt-hit defence company bag an offset partnership with Dassault, the company that makes the Rafale jets.
The offset clause means that in exchange for landing the Indian contract, Dassault has to invest half the value of the deal - about Rs 30,000 crore - in Indian firms. Reliance Defence was chosen as one of those "offset" partners and is to manufacture plane parts - though not for the 36 jets ordered by India.
Both Dassault and the centre have rubbished Congress president Rahul Gandhi's allegation that the French aeronautics major had chosen Anil Ambani's company in order to bag the fighter jet order.
The court has said the hugely contentious issue of the pricing of the jets will not be debated unless it decides that the matter should be in public domain. The centre had submitted pricing details of the deal in a sealed envelope to the court, and the process followed in an affidavit.
Senior Air Force officers had also attended the hearing to clear doubts of the judges on the necessity of getting Rafale fighter jets.
In the last hearing, the government had admitted in Supreme Court that there is no sovereign guarantee that Dassault will meet its obligation of delivering the 36 Rafale jets. What is there, the government's top law officer KK Venugopal had told the court, was a "Letter of Comfort" from France - a written document that assures that an obligation will eventually be met.
In legal terms, a Letter of Comfort is weaker than a sovereign guarantee, under which the foreign government takes full responsibility that the contract will be executed. In case of any breach of contract, the two governments resolve the issue.
Reports suggest the deal had been stalled over France's refusal to be a sovereign guarantor. In the case of government-to-government deals with the US, Washington stands guarantee to ensure the contract is executed without a hitch.
The petitions seeking a court-monitored investigation into the Rafale deal were first filed by advocates Manohar Lal Sharma and Vineet Dhanda. Later, Aam Aadmi Party lawmaker Sanjay Singh filed another one. Former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha, Arun Shourie and activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan also filed a joint petition in the top court.
Disclaimer: NDTV has been sued for 10,000 crores by Anil Ambani's Reliance Group for its coverage of the Rafale deal.
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