"Review Petition widely circulated and available in public domain, putting National Security in jeopardy," says Centre in its Rafale affidavit to Supreme Court

The Centre filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court on Wednesday where it said that that the documents filed by the petitioners seeking review of its Rafale deal verdict are "sensitive to national security" and relate to war capacity of the combat aircraft.

It also said that the review plea filed by former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie as also activist advocate Prashant Bhushan has been widely circulated and is available to the country's enemy and adversaries.

"This puts the national security in jeopardy. Without consent, permission or acquiescence of the Central Government, those who have conspired in making the photocopy of these sensitive documents and annexing it to the review petition/ miscellaneous application and thereby committing theft by unauthorized photocopying of such documents...have adversely affected the sovereignty, security and friendly relations with the foreign countries," the affidavit said.

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Read the affidavit below:

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 It said that even though the Centre "maintains secrecy", the review petitioners are "guilty of leakage of sensitive information, which offends the terms of the agreements".

"The petitioners are using unauthorisedly accessed documents with the intention to present a selective and incomplete picture of internal secret deliberations on a matter relating to National Security and Defence," the affidavit said

Former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie and advocate Prashant Bhushan, who had jointly filed a petition had alleged that the Centre suppressed crucial facts when the apex court decided to dismiss the batch of PILs against the Rafale deal in December. When Bhushan referred to an article written by senior journalist N Ram in a media publication, Attorney General KK Venugopal said the write-ups were based on stolen documents.

An FIR has not been registered so far into the theft of documents pertaining to Rafale deal, he added.

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