Jaitley rules out setting up JPC on Rafale deal

New Delhi, Dec 17: Ruling out referring the Rafale deal to a parliamentary panel, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Sunday launched a blistering attack on the Congress, calling it “bad losers” and said the CAG’s view of the deal is not relevant after the Supreme Court’s clean chit.

          With the first four days of winter session of Parliament washed out over various protests, Jaitley said the opposition Congress will prefer disruptions over discussion on Rafale during the remainder of the session.

          The Congress, which was not a petitioner before the apex court, wants the Rafale deal to be referred to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to go into the price arrived at by the BJP government versus the one negotiated by the previous UPA regime, as also how billionaire Anil Ambani’s group with virtually no experience in manufacture of fighter jets was selected as an offset partner for the deal.

          “After the Supreme Court has spoken the last word, it gets legitimacy. A political body can never come to a finding contrary to what the Court has said,” Jaitley wrote in a Facebook blog, titled ‘Rafale – Lies, Shortlived lies and now further lies?’

          On the Congress claiming ‘ambiguity’ in the Supreme Court judgment that said the deal has been examined by the CAG and is now before Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Jaitley said defence transactions go to the CAG for an audit review, which then are referred to the PAC.

          He said, the correct picture has been presented to court and it must now be left to the wisdom of the court to state at which stage the CAG review is pending.

          “The CAG review is not relevant to the final findings on procedure, pricing and offset suppliers. But bad losers never accept the truth. Having failed in multiple lies they have now started an innuendo about the Judgement,” he said.

          Jaitley said Congress, having failed in their initial falsehood, is now “manufacturing further lies about the Judgement.”

          “On facts it lied. The judgement of the Supreme Court conclusively establishes the Congress party’s vulnerabilities in a discussion on defence transactions.

          “It will be a great opportunity to remind the nation of the legacy of the Congress Party and its defence acquisitions – a great opportunity indeed for some of us to speak,” he wrote.