Rafale documents are stolen from Defence Ministry: AG KK Venugopal tells SC

NEW DELHI: The government Wednesday told the Supreme Court that the documents related to Rafale aircraft deal have been stolen from the Defence Ministry and the petitioners seeking a review of its verdict dismissing all pleas against the purchase of the jets relied upon those documents.

A three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices S K Kaul and K M Joseph began the open court hearing during which former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie and advocate Prashant Bhushan, who had jointly filed the petition, alleged that the Centre suppressed crucial facts when the apex court decided to dismiss the batch of PILs against the Rafale deal in December.

When Bhushan



referred to an article written by senior journalist N Ram, Attorney General K K Venugopal opposed it, saying that his write-ups were based on stolen documents and an investigation into the matter is on.

Venugopal said the first write up by the senior journalist appeared in The Hindu on February 8 and there is also a story in Wednesday's edition which was aimed at influencing the proceedings and that amounts to contempt of court.

While Venugopal was seeking dismissal of the review petitions and raising objections to Bhushan's arguments based on the write-ups published in The Hindu, the bench sought to know from the Centre what has it done when it is alleging that the stories are based on stolen material.