SC reserves order on govt objections in Rafale leak case

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday reserved its verdict on preliminary objections raised by the Central government in the review petitions filed in the Rafale case that the photocopied documents presented by the petitioners amounted to theft and cannot be relied on by the court as they are “privileged” documents.

A three-judge bench of CJI Ranjan Gogoi, Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and K.M. Joseph reserved orders at the conclusion of arguments from attorney-general (AG) K.K. Venugopal claiming “privilege” and advocate Prashant Bhushan and former Union minister Arun Shourie opposing any such privilege.

The apex court, on December 14, 2018, had dismissed a petition filed by Mr Bhushan, Mr Shourie, and former minister Yashwant Sinha.

The bench, after a hearing on preliminary objections, reserved verdict and it is likely that the issue of CBI probe would be taken up later.

The AG contended 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 RTI Act as per Section 8(1)(a).

Justice Joseph countered the AG 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. The AG, however, asserted that national security interests, sovereignty, and integrity of the country would outweigh all other interests.

Mr Bhushan argued that the claim of privilege on documents, which are already in public domain, cannot be made as Section 123 of the Indian Evidence Act only protects “unpublished documents.”