A three-judge bench comprising CJI Ranjan Gogoi, Justices S K Kaul & K M Joseph on Tuesday dismissed the preliminary objection raised by the Centre with regard to the admissibility of the secret documents annexed to review petitions, reports ANI.
According to the reports, Supreme Court has now allowed the admissibility of three documents in Rafale deal as evidence in re-examining the review petitions filed against the earlier Supreme Court judgment of December 14th refusing to order probe in procuring 36 Rafale fighter jets from France.
The Supreme Court will schedule another date for the hearing of review petitions. The Supreme Court was hearing five Rafale review petitions, mainly on the issues of the admissibility of “stolen” Rafale documents as evidence and the claim of privilege raised on them by the government.
The Union government represented by Attorney-General KK Venugopal had argued that the review petition should be dismissed at the preliminary stage itself because they were based on “stolen” documents published in newspapers like The Hindu.
In December, the Supreme Court, dismissing the case, had clarified that the examination has been primarily from the point of the exercise of jurisdiction by this court under Article 32. The SC did not find it as a case for the court to scrutinise the process of acquisition.