#Rafale: SC To Pronounce Order Tomorrow On Preliminary Objections By Centre That Court Cannot Examine 'Privileged' Document
The Supreme Court will pronounce the order in the Rafale Review Petition on the preliminary objections raised by the Central Government that the documents presented by the petitioners cannot be relied on by the Court as they are "privileged" documents. The Bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and KM Joseph reserved the orders on the preliminary issue. The Cause...
The Supreme Court will pronounce the order in the Rafale Review Petition on the preliminary objections raised by the Central Government that the documents presented by the petitioners cannot be relied on by the Court as they are "privileged" documents.
The Bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and KM Joseph reserved the orders on the preliminary issue.
The Cause list indicates that there will be two separate Judgments. (One by CJI and one by Justice KM Joseph)
During the hearing the Attorney General argued that the documents presented are privileged documents , which cannot be considered in evidence as per Section 123 of the Indian Evidence Act. The documents are protected under the Official Secrets Act. The AG also added that the disclosure of the documents is exempted under the Right to Information Act as per Section 8(1)(a).
Prashant Bhushan, one of the petitioners, countered the submissions of AG by saying that claim of privilege cannot be made over documents which are already in public domain. He highlighted that Section 123 Indian Evidence Act only protected "unpublished documents".
Justice K M Joseph observed that saying that Section 22 of the RTI Act gave it an overriding effect over the Official Secrets Act. The judge also referred to Section 24 of the RTI Act to state that even security and intelligence establishments are not exempted from disclosing information in relation to corruption and human rights violations.
Arun Shourie, another petitioner remarked that he was thankful to the AG for admitting that the documents were genuine by stating that they were photocopies.
The Court was hearing the review petitions filed by Prashant Bhushan, Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie against the December 14 judgment. Listed along with the review petition were the correction petition filed by the Central Government and the petition filed for initiating perjury proceedings against officials who allegedly misled the Court by submitting false information in the notes submitted to the Court.