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The counter affidavit filed by the government states that the perjury application filed by the review petitioners were based on selective media reports and incomplete internal file notings which were illegally procured. It is being said that media reports cannot be the basis of for initiating a perjury proceeding as it has been seen that the decision of Courts do not depend on media reports.
The petitioners have only relied on selective leaks in media by the Ministry of Defence along with individual opinions which give only an incomplete picture.Thus, it can be deduced that the application is misconceived and the attempt to reopen the already sealed issues, contends the government.
The Government had stated that the negotiations were conducted by Indian Negotiating Team, which was questioned by the revelations made by the Hindu, which stated that the Prime Minister’s office had conducted parallel negotiations.The Prime Minister’s intervention in the negotiations stand admitted by the then Defence Minister Manohar Parikkar. In response to this, it was claimed that the Prime Minister’s monitoring process cannot be called as a parallel negotiations. However, it has been further stated that the intervention of the Prime Minister led to the dilution of any clauses in the deal for example, sovereign guarantee, non-insistence of payment in escrow account and incorporation of arbitration at Geneva as means of dispute resolution. The government has said that, Inter-Government Agreement(IGA) with French Government was vetted by the Ministry of Law and Justice and had the approval of Cabinet Committee on Security(CCS).
The Court had found that, "broadly, the process was followed", is not against the claims made by the Hindu. The government replies to this by saying that, the report of the CAG, had brought out the unrealistic benchmark price fixed by the INT. the observations of the CAG negates that of the application of the applicants.
It is being claimed that the government made a reference to negotiations between Dassault Aviation and Reliance Industries in 2012. However, it was mischievously, concealed that Reliance was owned by Mukesh Ambani.This led the Court to think that Reliance Industries was the parent company of Reliance Aerostructure Ltd(RAL).The Court hence overlooked the fact that RAL landed the offset contract of Dassault, as it was under the conception that its parent company was holding negotiations with Dassault since 2012. The government said that it has no role to play in the selection of the Indian Offset Partner as it is a commercial decision of Dassault.
The last contention made here was that, the government had submitted, unsigned note in sealed cover in the Supreme Court without an accompanying affidavit. However, the government said that the documents in sealed cover were signed by the Under Secretary which were based on official records. Lastly, the correction application of the government was filed to rectify certain factual mistakes about the deal and was examined by the CAG and Parliamentary Accounts Committee. Further, these mistakes do not determine the judgement in anyway.
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