NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a fresh petition against the Rafale aircraft deal. The petition, which is seeking a direction to the centre to reveal details of the deal and the comparative prices during the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regimes, will be heard by a bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices SK Kaul and KM Joseph on Wednesday.
The petition, filed by lawyer Vineet Dhanda, also sought information about the contract given to private company Reliance Defence by Dassault. A plea filed earlier, alleging discrepancies in the deal and seeking a stay on it will also come up for hearing on October 10.
In the plea, advocate ML Sharma has said that the inter-government agreement to buy 36 Rafale fighter jets must be quashed as it was an “outcome of corruption” and not ratified by the Parliament under Article 253 (the Parliament has the power to make any law for implementing any inter-government agreement) of the Constitution .Another similar petition was filed in the top court in March seeking an independent probe into the Rafale deal and the cost involved.