Alleging that half-baked information has been provided to the Supreme Court about the controversial Rafale deal, Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala on Friday challenged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to order a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the deal.
“The verdict of the Supreme Court today is a validation of what the Congress Party stated months ago. Particularly on November 15, 2018, that Supreme Court is not the forum to decide the issue of such sensitive defence contract. I had said that Article 136 and 32 are not the forum to decide the issue – the pricing, the process, the sovereign guarantee and the corruption in the Rafale contract. Only forum and only media is a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) which can probe the entire corruption in Rafale deal,” Surjewala said while addressing the media today.
“What the government presented to the Supreme Court was one-sided, half-baked information on an unsigned affidavit which was not scrutinised by anybody nor was it in public domain,” he added.
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He then, on behalf of the Congress, challenged PM Modi to order a JPC into the Rafale deal.
“If government has nothing to hide, if Modi ji and his government has committed no corruption then I challenge him today, on behalf of the Indian National Congress (INC) to submit to a JPC probe which will examine the notings on the file, which will examine and question the PM and all the Defence Ministry officials and which will then prove unequivocally as to how a systematic corruption guided by the highest echelons of power happened in the Rafale deal,” he said.
Earlier in the day, the apex court dismissed all petitions seeking a direction to the CBI to register an FIR for alleged irregularities in the Rafale deal.