Planning criminal action against newspapers who published details of defence deal, says government
Current Affairs: The documents, based on which details of alleged misdoings in the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France were published by newspapers, were stolen from the Ministry of Defence either by current or former employees of the ministry, the central government told the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
As these documents pertain to defence deals and are covered under the Official Secrets Act, the government is planning to take “criminal action” against the newspapers which published the stories and the petitioner who used it in his petition, Attorney General (AG) K K Venugopal told the court. Since the stories and petitions included top secret defence documents which were stolen, the top court should dismiss the review petitions, AG Venugopal said.
The three-judge bench led by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, however, rejected this line of argument and sought to know that even if these documents were stolen but proved the point the petitioner was trying to raise, whether the court should consider it or not. It also sought to know if the central government could hide behind the argument of national security when there was a case of corruption…
