The Supreme Court on Tuesday gave the Centre four days instead of four weeks to file its reply to the review petitions filed in the Rafale case and allowed Congress president Rahul Gandhi to file a \u201cgood affidavit\u201d in a related contempt case after the judges said they weren\u2019t convinced by his expression of regret on the matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Attorney general KK \nVenugopal sought four weeks\u2019 time to file the Centre\u2019s reply. The bench,\n headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi, directed the \ngovernment to file its reply by May 4 and posted the matter for hearing \non May 6. The bench, also comprising justice Sanjay Kaul and justice KM \nJoseph, sought the Centre\u2019s reply on a separate plea by the petitioner \nto initiate perjury action against officials who allegedly misguided the\n apex court in the Rafale case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The petition said the verdict \ncontained errors and relied on incorrect claims made by the government \nin an unsigned note given in a sealed cover to the court.Venugopal told \nthe court: \u201cThe Centre has circulated a letter in the review petition \nfor adjournment of the proceedings. We need time to file counter in the \nreview petition. No formal notices have been issued.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On December\n 14, the Supreme Court dismissed all petitions seeking a court-monitored\n probe of the 59,000 crore Rafale fighter jet deal with France, saying \nthat there was no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the \ndeal. The petitioners, former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun \nShourie and advocate Prashant Bhushan, moved the Supreme Court for a \nreview of the verdict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gandhi last week filed an affidavit to \nexplain his first reaction to the April 10 court ruling on use of leaked\n defence ministry documents for the Rafale review petition. Gandhi then \nappeared to remark that the court said \u201cChowkidar chor hai [the watchman\n is a thief]\u201d, repeating a slogan that he and the Congress have used to \ntarget Prime Minister Narendra Modi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gandhi has told the court \nthat his remarks were not meant to obstruct administration of justice or\n scandalise the court in any manner. Gandhi also apologised for \nascribing comments to the court and said this happened in the \u201cheat of \ncampaigning\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Singhivi tried to persuade the judges that Gandhi \nhad clearly regretted the mistake and said:\u201cRegret is same as apology, I\n have checked the dictionary. If there is a deficiency in the previous \naffidavit, please allow me to file a new affidavit. I will make a better\n affidavit. I sincerely apologise for attributing the comments to the \nSupreme Court.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Appearing for Lekhi, senior advocate Mukul \nRohatgi asked the court to reject Gandhi\u2019s affidavit and proceed against\n him. Rohatgi argued: \u201cHe has put words in the mouth of Supreme Court \nfor political gains. Identical affidavit was filed 10 days back. This is\n the grossest form of contempt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking to reporters later, \nLekhi said: \u201cHis lawyer apologising on his behalf in the court is not \nenough. Rahul Gandhi should file a written affidavit seeking an apology.\n It is clear that our petition was right and they have committed a \ncrime, they are trying to justify their crime, meaning they have no fear\n of the judiciary.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The National Democratic Alliance\u2019s decision \nto enter an $8.7 billion government-to-government deal with France to \nbuy 36 Rafale warplanes made by Dassault Aviation was announced in April\n 2015, with an agreement signed a little over a year later.\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Supreme Court on Tuesday gave the Centre four days instead of four weeks to file its reply to the review petitions filed in the Rafale case and allowed Congress president Rahul Gandhi to file a \u201cgood affidavit\u201d in a related contempt case after the judges said they weren\u2019t convinced by his expression of regret […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":60334,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[312],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-india"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60333"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60335,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60333\/revisions\/60335"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}