According to the French investigative website Mediapart, a French judge has been chosen to oversee a “highly sensitive” court inquiry into alleged “corruption and favoritism” in the Rs 59,000 crore Rafale fighter aircraft sale with India.
Following the revelation, Congress’s main spokesman Randeep Surjewala called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to intervene and order a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) investigation into the Rafale deal on Saturday.
Corruption in the Rafale transaction has finally been exposed. The Congress party’s and Rahul Gandhi’s positions have been vindicated today, he told reporters at a news conference, after the French government requested an investigation.
Nevertheless, neither the Indian government nor the BJP responded immediately.
According to Mediapart, the investigation into the 2016 inter-governmental agreement was formally launched on June 14.
“A judicial probe into suspected corruption has been opened in France over the 7.8-billion-euro sale to India in 2016 of 36 Dassault-built Rafale fighter aircraft,” the Mediapart reported on the latest development on the controversial deal.
The inquiry was launched by the national financial prosecutor’s office, according to the statement (PNF).
Following Mediapart’s new allegations of suspected wrongdoings in the purchase in April, as well as a complaint submitted by French financial crime NGO Sherpa, France’s national financial prosecutor’s office has requested a judicial inquiry.
According to the media source, “the highly sensitive inquiry of the inter-governmental pact signed off in 2016 was formally launched on June 14th.”
An initial complaint was “buried” in 2019 by a former PNF head, according to Mediapart writer Yann Philippin, who issued a series of reports on the sale.
In April, Mediapart claimed that Dassault Aviation had paid over one million Euros to an Indian intermediary, citing an inquiry by the country’s anti-corruption agency.
Dassault Aviation has denied the charges of corruption, claiming that no contract breaches were recorded.
On the 23rd of September 2016, the National Democratical Alliance (NDA), after an almost seven-year effort to obtain the 126 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) to the Indian Air Force during the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime, inked a Rs 59,000-crore deal to procure 36 Rafale jets from the French aerospace major, Dassault Aviation.
The government was accused of significant irregularities during the transaction by Congress on the assumption that the government procured over 1,670 crore Rs for every aircraft against the Rs 526 crore finalized by the UPA administration in the MMRCA talks.
Congress raised a number of concerns over the agreement and claimed corruption before the Lok Sabha elections in 2019, but the administration dismissed all accusations.
