Rafale Deal: Anil Ambani welcomes verdict, says top court established falsity of wild allegations

Reliance Group chairman Anil Ambani welcomed the Supreme Court verdict dismissing all the petitions seeking an investigation into the Rafale fighter jets deal and issued a statement terming the allegations levelled against him as “wild, baseless and politically-motivated”. Anil Ambani said that the Supreme Court verdict established the “complete falsity of the wild, baseless and politically motivated allegations levelled against Reliance Group” and him personally.

“I welcome the judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court today, summarily dismissing all PILs filed on the Rafale contracts and conclusively establishing the complete falsity of the wild, baseless and politically-motivated allegations levelled against Reliance Group and me personally,” read the statement as quoted by news agency ANI.

Anil Ambani statement: Welcome judgment of Hon'ble Supreme Court today summarily dismissing PILs filed on Rafale contracts, and conclusively establishing complete falsity of wild, baseless and politically motivated allegations levelled against Reliance Group and me personally

— ANI (@ANI) December 14, 2018

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The Reliance Group chairman’s statement further said that they remained “committed to India’s national security” and towards government policies such as Make in India and Skill India.

“We remain committed to India’s national security and to making our humble contribution towards the ‘Make in India’ and ‘Skill India’ policies of the Government in the critical area of defence, including our offset partnership agreement with our valued partner, Dassault Aviation of France,” the statement further read.

Amid the Rafale deal controversy over pricing and choosing Anil Ambani’s 'inexperienced' Reliance as Indian offset partner, Dassault Aviation CEO Eric Trappier, on November 13, backed the Narendra Modi government's claims. In an interview with ANI, the CEO of Dassault Aviation – the company responsible for manufacturing the Rafale fighter aircraft – said that it was the company’s decision to choose Reliance as one of its offset partners.

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“We chose Ambani by ourselves. We already have 30 partners other than Reliance. The IAF is supporting the deal because they need the fighter jets for their own defence to be at the top,” Trappier had said. Commenting on the issue of pricing, the Dassault CEO had said that he quoted exactly the same price but since it was a government-to-government deal, negotiations happened and he had to decrease the price by 9 per cent.

The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed all the petitions seeking a court-monitored investigation into the Rafale deal. The verdict was delivered by a bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi, and Justices SK Kaul and KM Joseph. It was pronounced on a batch of pleas seeking a court-monitored probe into the deal.