Rafale deal: SC dismisses Modi government's privilege claims over petitioners' documents

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court Wednesday dismissed preliminary objections raised by the Centre that documents on which it claimed "privilege" cannot be relied upon to re-examine the verdict in the Rafale fighter jet deal.

The Centre had submitted that the privileged documents were procured by petitioners in an illegal way and used to support their review petitions against the December 14, 2018 judgement of the apex court dismissing all pleas challenging procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France.

"We dismiss the preliminary objection raised by Union of India questioning the maintainability of the review petition," a bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices S K Kaul and K M Joseph said.

The top court said review petitions against its December 14 verdict dismissing all petitions against procurement of Rafale jets will be decided on merits.

The apex court said it will fix a date for hearing review petitions.