Image used for representation. (File Photo)

NEW DELHI: The Centre on Saturday told the Supreme Court that it was the figment of imagination on part of petitioners — Prashant Bhushan, Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha — that each Rafale jet in the NDA government deal cost Rs 1,000 crore more than that under the UPA regime.

The petitioners had alleged on the basis of various media reports that price of an aircraft bought under the 36 Rafale planes package was about Rs 1,000 crore higher per aircraft as compared to the price under the MMRCA process (negotiated by the Congress-led UPA government).

The Centre said, “The report of the Comptroller and Auditor General does not support the main argument of the petitioners which has been perpetually repeated before the Supreme Court that the cost of each aircraft under the 36 Rafale contract is Rs 1,000 crore higher than what it would have been under the MMRCA (medium multi-role combat aircraft) bid.”

All pricing details, files, documents and records were made available to the CAG team which worked out its own aligned cost after comparing each and every component of the 36-jet deal under Indo-French inter-governmental agreement and the MMRCA bid for 126 Rafale jets , it said.

“The CAG observations do not support the main claim of the petitioners that each aircraft was bought at a price which is Rs 1,000 crore more than the MMRCA bid. In fact, the CAG has held that the 36 Rafale aircraft deal is 2.86% lower than the audited aligned price and in addition, there would be benefits on account of non-firm and fixed price. This itself negates the case of petitioners ......,” the Centre said in its 39-page written submission.

The SC had reserved verdict on the petitions seeking review of its December 14 judgement giving clean chit to the government in the procurement of Rafale jets.

It had also reserved its verdict on a petition seeking contempt proceedings against Congress president Rahul Gandhi for making speeches claiming that the SC had endorsed his ‘chowkidar chor hai’ jibe against PM Narendra Modi in the Rafale deal . Rahul had tendered unconditional apology for linking the SC order to his political jibe.

The petitioners had also alleged, relying on a June 1, 2016 note put up by three of the seven-member Indian Negotiation Team, that the ‘benchmark price’ was raised from 5.2 billion to 8.2 billion. The Centre said the objections mentioned by the three members was discussed in two more meetings of the INT on June 9-10 and July 18 of 2016.

