When Attorney General KK Venugopal tells the Supreme Court that an inquiry into the Rafale deal would compromise national security, he would undoubtedly be conveying the views of the central government. His arguments were, however, more political than legal. The AG declared that the country was in dire need of Rafale fighter jets, that enemy countries have superior planes and that it would be catastrophic for the country to order an investigation into the deal. While the AG appeared to have assumed that the court’s intervention would lead to cancellation of the deal, no such prayer has been made by the petitioners.

An investigation has been sought into charges of bypassing established procedures, arbitrary decisions by the PMO, unilateral reduction of the indent, cronyism and corruption. Asked by Justice KM Joseph whether the government could hide behind national security when the charge is of corruption, the AG asked if the government would now have to seek the court’s permission before going to war. He went on to argue that demands for an inquiry were politically motivated and hence the court should have nothing to do with them.

Finally, he argued that the government’s view has consistently been that it would be detrimental to national security to disclose the pricing of Rafale but the ‘secret’ documents were stolen by newspapers and journalists and published, thereby putting the nation at risk. Even more remarkably, the AG suggested that the government was planning to file an FIR for the theft of documents and prosecute newspapers and the journalists under the Official Secrets Act.