Nirmala Sitharaman accuses Rahul of contempt of court
NEW DELHI: Congress president Rahul Gandhi committed gross contempt of court by claiming the Supreme Court had endorsed allegations of corruption in the Rafale deal and the government was ready to present documents under scrutiny to the court, defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman said.
Responding to the SC decision to hear review petitions in the Rafale case, Sitharaman said the development was not a setback to the government. She said the government was ready to argue on the merits of the documents that were part of the official record on the decision to acquire Rafale jets through an inter-governmental agreement (IGA).
She said Rahul had chosen to pass off his allegations as the SC decision by saying the court had said “chowkidar ne chori ki hai” and that PM Narendra Modi gave Rs 30,000 crore to industrialist Anil Ambani. She said the order was about review of stolen documents and presented only a half-truth while the clean chit given by the SC to the government stands.
Sitharaman also asserted that the court’s order, which allowed leaked documents to be relied on by petitioners seeking review of its Rafale judgment, would make the entire deal crystal clear and the Congress would not be able to “shows its face”.
The government has said that issues like the “dissent note” by some members of the Indian negotiating team was addressed and the officials were party to the final proposal sent to the Cabinet Committee on Security.
Sitharaman said Rahul had crossed the line of decency in his comments on the court’s order and added it underlined his frustration that he was attributing words to the SC that the court never uttered.
The order was limited to whether the documents, which the government had argued should not be considered by the court as they were obtained illegally, should be accepted by the apex court or not, she said. “Rahul Gandhi does not read even half a paragraph of the court’s order and goes by what his advisers tell him,” Sitharaman claimed.
