SC dismisses Centre's claim of 'privilege' over Rafale documents: Here's the full text of apex court's judgment

The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed the preliminary objections that the government raised against petitions seeking a review of the 14 December SC judgment in the Rafale case.

A Supreme Court bench, which included CJI Ranjan Gogoi and Justices SK Kaul and KM Joseph had given the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government a clean chit in the procurement of 36 Rafale jets under an India-France inter-governmental agreement.

The court will now examine three documents whose admissibility was questioned by the Centre , claiming  “privilege”  and stating that they were “stolen” from classified government files.

These documents can be expected to play an important role in the hearing of the review petitions.

This means that classified documents sourced by the media without authorisation can also be treated as admissible evidence.

The apex court said it will fix the date for hearing of the review petitions in a separate order. It has said that “as far as the question of hearing of review plea on Rafale judgment is concerned, it will give a detailed hearing later on”.

Here’s the full text of the Supreme Court judgment dismissing the Centre’s objections raised against petitions seeking a review of the 14 December judgment on Rafale fighter jet deal: