New Delhi: Under pressure from the Supreme Court, the Narendra Modi government on Monday shared details of the price for 36 Rafale fighter jets to be bought from France’s Dassault Aviation at a cost of '58,000 crore and gave the timeline of one-year-long negotiations that preceded the formalisation of the mega defence deal. The price of the fully-loaded jets was given to the court in a sealed envelop by the government which tried hard to dispel doubts about the deal that has faced allegations of lack of transparency from the Opposition parties.
“The process as laid down in the defence procurement procedure-2013 has been followed in procurement of the Rafale aircraft and the CCS on August 24, 2016 approved the agreement which was arrived at after negotiations between both the sides,” said the Centre in a document.
The document said that an Indian team negotiated with the French side for about an year and approval of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), being the competent financial authority, was taken before signing the inter-government agreement.
After the Indian negotiation team submitted its report on fully-loaded Rafale jets on August 4, 2016, it was vetted by the finance and law ministries within 20 days and the Cabinet Committee on Security approved the deal on August 24, said the government.
The document titled “Details of the steps in the decision making process leading to the award of 36 Rafale fighter aircraft order” stated that the process as laid down in the defence procurement procedure-2013 - when the Congress-led UPA was in power - was followed in procurement of the Rafale aircraft. The case will be heard next on Wednesday.
The court on October 31 had asked the Centre to place before it within 10 days the pricing details of 36 Rafale fighter jets while hearing a bunch of petitions, including those filed by former BJP leaders and Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie.
On Monday, the document on the decision-making process related to the deal was also given to the petitioners.
