Sitaram Yechury: Modi govt admits Rafale documents “stolen”; FIR against Modi inescapable

Responding to Attorney General KK Venugopal’s statement about certain documents pertaining to the Rafale aircraft deal being stolen from the Defence Ministry during the Rafale hearing, Communist Party of India (Marxist) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury pointed out that now an FIR against PM Modi was ‘inescapable’.

He tweeted, “Modi government itself admits Rafale documents ‘stolen’ from the Ministry of Defence. How can the country’s security be entrusted with this government? But thanks to them for confirming the documents. An FIR against Modi is now inescapable.”

The Centre on March 6 told the court that documents related to Rafale that have appeared in the media and cited by petitioners seeking a recall of the December 14 ruling giving a clean chit to the government on the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets were privileged documents stolen from the Defence Ministry.

Justice KM Joseph said that the stolen evidence could still be looked into by the Court because it still existed under the Evidence Act. He said that the question of national security will not arise when the issue before Court is whether investigation should be ordered.

The Review petition was filed by Sinha, Shourie, Bhushan, as well as advocate Manohar Lal Sharma and Aam Aadmi Party lawmaker Sanjay Singh and was listed for open court before the bench of CJI Gogoi, Justice Kaul and Justice Joseph.

AG Venugopal also read out the RTI Act and stated that the Act exempts defence documents from being released and was therefore a violation of the Official Secrets Act.