New Delhi: The Centre Monday placed in a sealed cover before the Supreme Court the price details of 36 Rafale fighter jets which India is buying from France.
The Centre’s counsel said it has apprised the details with regard to the pricing/cost to the apex court in a sealed cover.
The court October 31 had asked the Centre to place before it within 10 days the pricing details of 36 Rafale fighter jets. On the last hearing, the Centre was reluctant to share the price details and Attorney General KK Venugopal had told a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi that pricing details of these jets were not even shared with Parliament.
The apex court November 14 will peruse the documents pertaining to the pricing details. The Centre also made public the document titled “Details of the steps in the decision making process leading to the award of 36 Rafale fighter aircraft order”, which stated that the process as laid down in the Defence Procurement Procedure-2013 has been followed in procurement of the Rafale aircraft.
The apex court’s directive had come after a group of petitioners approached it and sought the court-monitored probe into the procurement of 36 Rafale jets. The document was also handed over to the petitioners including former BJP leaders and Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie.
The process as laid down in the Defence Procurement Procedure-2013 has been followed in procurement of the Rafale aircraft and the CCS August 24, 2016 approved the agreement which was arrived at after negotiations between the Indian and the French sides, said the 14-page document.