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| Rafale and Rahul Gandhi: Curious case of missing dates in Supreme Court | | |
New Delhi May 7
A Supreme Court bench led by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi on Monday refused to hear a plea seeking review of its December 2018 judgment in the Rafale deal case. It was deferred to May 10. The reason: hearing on the contempt case against Congress president Rahul Gandhi was not tagged with the case and listed for a separate hearing instead.
The review petition pertains to the examination of the Supreme Court judgment, which ruled out commercial favouritism as alleged by the petitioners Arun Shourie, Prashant Bhushan and Yashwant Sinha in the defence contract for the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets from French company Dassault Aviation.
The petitioners seek a review of the verdict saying new facts related to the case have emerged and that the government withheld information from the Supreme Court in the matter leading to what is widely perceived as a clean chit to the government in Rafale deal case.
The contempt case against Rahul Gandhi relates to his statement where he attributed his chwokidar chor hai (watchman is a thief) slogan to the Supreme Court’s decision to allow leaked documents cited by the Bhushan and other petitioners seeking review of the Rafale deal judgment. The government had objected to the documents claiming protection under the Official Secrets Act.
How did it happen?
The two cases were expected to be heard the same day. Its genesis lies in an April 23 order of the Supreme Court bench, which directed the Registry to list the present contempt petition and connected Review Petitions and Miscellaneous Applications on 30.4.2019.
On April 30, CJI Gogoi-led bench had dictated its order in open court that the two cases be listed for hearing on Monday, May 6. But in the copy of the order uploaded on the website of the Supreme Court, the two cases were to be listed separately: review petition on May 6 and contempt case on May 10, a day before the court recesses for summer vacation.
When this discrepancy came to the light on Monday, CJI Gogoi was bemused and said, "We are a little perplexed that the hearings in the two cases have different dates when there is a judicial order saying that both would be taken up together."
Referring to April 30 order, CJI Gogoi said, "I remember clearly dictating in court that the [contempt] case would come up for analogous hearing on Monday along with the Rafale case... How did this happen? How has it happened that the order copy says May 10?"
Justice SK Kaul, the second judge on the bench, echoed CJI Gogoi: "I too had heard the order dictated in the courtroom saying May 6." However, third judge of the bench Justice KM Joseph remained silent.
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