Review petition based on leaked secret Rafale documents jeopardised national security, Centre to SC
New Delhi, Mar 13: The Centre Wednesday told the Supreme Court that documents filed by the petitioners seeking review of its Rafale deal verdict are "sensitive to national security" and those who conspired in photocopying the papers have committed theft and put the security in jeopardy by leaking them.
The Ministry of Defence said an internal enquiry commenced on February 28 and is currently in progress over the leakage of sensitive documents and it is of utmost concern to find out where the leakage took place.
The affidavit filed by the ministry said documents attached by the petitioners -- former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie as also activist advocate Prashant Bhushan -- relate to war capacity of combat aircraft and have been widely circulated, available to the country's enemy and adversaries.
"This puts the national security in jeopardy. Without consent, permission or acquiescence of the Central Government, those who have conspired in making the photocopy of these sensitive documents and annexing it to the review petition/ miscellaneous application and thereby committing theft by unauthorised photocopying of such documents relied in this regard...have adversely affected the Sovereignty, Security and Friendly Relations with the foreign countries," said the affidavit, filed by Defence Secretary Sanjay Mitra.
The affidavit assumes significance as Attorney General K K Venugopal on March 6 hearing before a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi had alleged that the review petition was based on the documents which were stolen from the ministry.
Two days later, Venugopal claimed the Rafale documents were not stolen from the Defence Ministry and he had meant in his submission before the top court that petitioners in the application used "photocopies of the original" papers, deemed secret by the government.
In the affidavit, the ministry said secrecy was envisaged in various agreements that the Centre had entered into with France and others concerning matters of national security.
It said that even though the Centre maintains secrecy, Sinha, Shourie and Bhushan are relying on documents annexed and "are guilty of leakage of sensitive information, which offends the terms of the agreements".
The Centre said those who have conspired in this leakage are guilty of penal offences under the Indian Penal Code including theft by unauthorised photocopying and leakage of sensitive official documents affecting National Security.
"These matters are now a subject of an internal enquiry which has commenced on February 28 and it is currently in progress. In particular, it is of utmost concern to the Central government to find out where the leakage took place so that in future the sanctity of decision making process in governance is maintained," said the affidavit, which will come up for perusal before the apex court on Thursday.
The Centre asserted that Sinha, Shourie and Bhushan are using "unauthorisedly accessed documents" with the intention to present a selective and incomplete picture of internal secret deliberations on a matter relating to National Security and Defence and have been used by them with an intention to mislead the apex court.
"The documents presented by the petitioners are failing to bring out how the issues were addressed and resolved and necessary approvals of the competent authorities taken. The selective and incomplete presentation of the facts and records by the petitioners are intended to mislead this court into deriving wrong conclusions which is very damaging to National Security and public interest," it said.
The affidavit added that the Performance Audit Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India on Capital Acquisition in Indian Air Force Report No 3 of 2019 has already been presented to Parliament and thus is in public domain.
It said that documents relied in petition belong to a class "in which the Government of India is entitled to claim privilege under Section 123, 124 of the Indian Evidence Act".
The documents unauthorisedly produced by petitioners are exempt from disclosure under Right to Information Act and as such petitioners have no authority whatsoever to produce it "before the court without the explicit permission of the Government of India, Ministry of Defence", it added.
While claiming privilege over the documents relied upon by the petitioners to support the review petition, the Centre said since they have unauthorisedly and illegally produced those documents it has become imperative for the Union of India to seek removal of these documents from the record.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
