Calling Congress's demand for setting up a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the Rafale deal "misconceived", Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday ruled out its necessity in the wake of Supreme Court's clean chit to the government.
The Congress, which was not a petitioner before the apex court, wants Rafale deal to be referred to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to go into the price arrived at by the BJP government versus the one negotiated by the previous UPA regime.
"After the Supreme Court has spoken the last word, it gets legitimacy. A political body can never come to a finding contrary to what the court has said," Jaitley wrote in a Facebook post titled 'Rafale — Lies, Short-lived lies and now further lies'.
The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a batch of petitions seeking probe on the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France. The court said there is no occasion to doubt the decision-making process of the government in Rafale fighter jet deal with France.
"How can a Parliamentary Committee go into the correctness or otherwise to what the Court has said? Is a committee of politicians, both legally and in terms of human resources, capable of reviewing issues already decided by the Supreme Court? On areas such as procedure, offset suppliers and pricing, can a Parliamentary Committee take a different view of what the Court has said?" the Finance Minister wrote.
"Can the contract be breached, nation's security be compromised and the pricing data be made available to Parliament / its committee so that national interest is severely compromised with? This would be putting the price details of the weaponry in public domain," he added.
Stating that all the "lies" spoken on the Rafale deal has been "exposed" and every word said against the government has proved to be "false", Jaitley tore into Congress saying, "The creators of falsehood will still persist with falsehood even at the cost of their own credibility. Only their captive constituencies will clap."
"As a political opponent, Rahul Gandhi's opposition to the deal was a desperate attempt. It was the UPA government which had shortlisted Rafale as it was technically the best and the cheapest," he wrote.
On the Congress claiming 'ambiguity' in the Supreme Court judgment, which said the deal has been examined by the CAG and is now before Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Jaitley said, "Defence transactions go to the CAG for an audit review. CAG recommendations go to Parliament and are referred to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) whose reports are then placed before the Parliament. This was factually and accurately stated by the Government before the Court. The audit review of Rafale is pending before the CAG."
"All facts are shared with it. When its report is out, it will go to the PAC. Notwithstanding this factually correct statement made, if an ambiguity has emerged in the Court Order, the correct course is for anyone to apply / mention before the Court and have it corrected," he said.
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