New Delhi, April 9: The Supreme Court will tomorrow deliver its verdict on review petitions on the December 14 judgment in connection with the Rafale deal. A bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Rajan Gogoi, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice KM Joseph will pronounce the judgement. The apex court will also decide whether documents sourced from the Defence Ministry by the media without authorisation can be used as evidence to order an investigation into the Rafale deal.

In December last year, the Supreme Court had rejected petitions seeking a court-monitored investigation into the Rafale deal, saying that it has found nothing wrong in the decision-making process. The top court later agreed to hear review petitions on its previous verdict. It had also said that it was not its job to go into the issue of pricing of fighter planes.

On January 2, former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha, journalist-turned-politician Arun Shourie and activist-lawyer Prashant Bhushan filed had moved the apex court for review of its Rafale judgement of December 14. In the meantime, The Hindu newspaper published a series of reports claiming that "parallel negotiations" were carried out by the Prime Minister's Office. The Hindu published documents sourced from the Defence Ministry to back its claims.

One of the reports, published by the newspaper, said the deal became more expensive for India because of France's refusal to provide bank guarantees. The government had termed the documents stolen but later backtracked and changed its stance, calling them "unauthorisedly photocopied". The government had also moved a plea seeking removal of three "privileged" documents from the case records. Rafale Deal Documents Stolen From Defence Ministry, 'The Hindu' Story Violates Official Secrets Act: A-G Tells Supreme Court.

Sinha, Shourie and Bhushan had annexed three documents with their two pleas - seeking the review of the court's December 14, 2018 judgment giving a clean chit to the government and an application alleging perjury against the government officials for misleading the court and suppressing material information relating to Rafale deal.

The Centre contended that the disclosure of these documents, on which it is claiming privilege, have a bearing on national security and the combat capacity of the fighter jets. Terming the Centre's objections "mala fide", Bhushan told the court that it was "not to prevent any harm to the security or defence of the country but to prevent the court from taking these documents into consideration while deciding the issue before it". (With agency inputs)

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 09, 2019 08:23 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).