SriLankan Airlines had incurred a loss of Rs. 539.7 million, in 2017 due to its failure to return a leased A-320 aircraft to the lessor before the deadline, the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) on irregularities at SriLankan Airlines, SriLankan Catering and Mihin Lanka was told, yesterday.
Asitha Fernando, Technical Services Engineer at SriLankan told the PCoI, referring to documents, that the airline had to return the aircraft on March 15, 2017.
Fernando said: "On January 15, 2017, the airline handed over the plane to the maintenance section to for necessary refurbishments. On April 15, 2017 it was sent to Jakarta, for painting. It was released from Jakarta, on May 19, 2017. However, since SriLankan had lost the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) certificate on July 04, 2017, it had to send the plane to an Ethiad facility on July 24, 2017 for final touches and we got it back on August 25, 2017."
The aircraft was returned to the lessor only on September 11, 2017, six months past the deadline.
Due to this delay SriLankan had to pay USD 2.082 million as a lease rental and penalty, USD 149 291 as additional maintenance charges and USD 1.299 million as additional charges to lessor. "The total cost for the delay was USD 3.532 million which is Rs. 539.7 million ( 1 USD = Rs. 152.8,)" Fernando said.
SriLankan was banned from carrying out full paint jobs or serious repairs at that time.
Earlier this month it was revealed that SriLankan Airlines had not taken steps to construct an additional hangar for painting aircraft, as suggested by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), which led to EASA instructing UL in 2014 not to carry out such activities in 2014. It was also revealed that EASA had not allowed base repairs to be carried out at BIA as well in 2015. However by November 2018 those rights had been restored.
Due to the restrictions between 2017 and 2018, SriLankan had to send three of its aircraft overseas for repairs. In January this year an aircraft was sent to Abu Dhabi for a check-up, aircraft painting and cabin reconfiguration. It cost SriLankan USD 376,798. Another aircraft was sent for a check-up in March 2017, a base maintenance procedure at a cost of USD 63 336 and the skin panel of an aircraft was repaired overseas in July 2017 at a cost of USD 392 581.
Two aircraft were also sent overseas for full paint jobs during the period as well. One plane was sent to Indonesia in April 2017 and the procedure cost USD 91,545 and another one was sent in July that year to the same company and the job cost USD 140,991.
Israel has delivered on threats of potential war crimes made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following shootings of settlers and soldiers by Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
Occupation forces destroyed homes belonging to the families of two Palestinians alleged to have attacked Israelis, and delivered demolition notices to a third.
Since late 2015 Israel has accelerated the demolitions of the family residences of Palestinians alleged to have attacked Israelis, a form of collective punishment Israel never applies to Jewish perpetrators.
Such collective punishment measures violate the Fourth Geneva Convention and other international laws.
On Monday, Israeli bulldozers destroyed a home belonging to the family of Ashraf Naalwa in Shweika village near the West Bank city of Tulkarm:
Naalwa, 23, was killed by Israeli forces last week, bringing an end to a two-month manhunt that followed the shooting deaths of two Israelis in a West Bank settlement industrial plant.
Palestinians had gathered around the home late Sunday in an attempt to prevent its demolition.
Six Palestinians were injured during confrontations with soldiers during the pre-dawn raid.
Refugee camp home blown up
Two days earlier, soldiers detonated a home belonging to the Abu Humaid family in al-Amari refugee camp near Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority, whose security forces cooperate with Israel.
Islam Abu Humaid, currently held by Israel, is accused of dropping a marble slab from a rooftop during a raid, fatally injuring a soldier, earlier this year.
Hundreds of Israeli soldiers raided Ramallah late Friday ahead of the demolition. Activists and family members who had tried to prevent the demolition were forcibly removed from the home.
Occupation soldiers evacuated residents of neighboring homes to a nearby sports field, and the Palestine Red Crescent Society transferred displaced women and children to its offices nearby.
Whatever the outcome, Brexit has triggered an irreversible collapse of Britain's political, legal, and social order.
Prime Minister Theresa May s greeted by Britain's Queen Elizabeth II at a ceremonial welcome for King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands in London on Oct. 23, 2018. (Matt Dunham/AFP/Getty Images)
Two events last week changed the Brexit game. On Monday, the European Court of Justice ruled that the United Kingdom could unilaterally cancel its decision to leave the European Union before signing a withdrawal agreement. Then on Wednesday, Conservative members of parliament called a vote of no confidence in their leader Theresa May (who leads the party as well as being prime minister)—and lost. They only mustered 117 votes to unseat her, while she secured the backing of 200 Conservative MPs. According to Tory party rules, she now can’t be challenged for another year: Instead of deposing her, they’ve given her a year of magical leading.
The first development strengthened remainers, and the second gave the prime minister vital breathing space that could theoretically be used to advance their agenda. But despite the fervent hopes of remainers, nothing that happened last week makes an “exit from Brexit” more likely. Instead, Brexit compromises conceivably capable of bridging the country’s divides, such as the “Norway plus” option proposed by moderate Conservative MP Nick Boles, are now harder than ever to reach. Meanwhile, Britain is teetering more wildly than ever on the edge of an outright constitutional crisis.
Lacking a written constitution, Britain has always relied on what we might call “alternating majoritarianism” for political stability. One party gets in and is allowed free rein to do what it wants. The fact that the British public generally has taken a dim view of parties it considered too extreme has generally forced these supposedly all-powerful majority parties away from their members’ views and toward the political center. And under Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system, centrist third parties face structural hurdles that prevent them from making headway.
That system is now broken. It relied on the big Conservative and Labour parties being able to win “working majorities” that limited MPs’ ability to rebel against their party lines. There’s no point in 10 or 15 MPs rebelling when a government has a majority of 50. All it achieves is to damage the rebels’ prospects of promotion. But that system has been fatally undermined from multiple directions.
First, the strength of the Scottish National Party has made working majorities a thing of the past. It made its breakthrough in 2015, after an independence referendum it lost, but at which it vastly exceeded expectations. Its geographical concentration allows it to win Westminster seats in Scotland, and without Scottish seats it’s almost impossible for the two big England-based parties to win a working majority.
Without a working majority, party leaders must pay attention to their hard-liners, or, as some Conservative Party members have been known to call them, “swivel-eyed loons.”The loons forced David Cameron to offer a referendum on Britain’s EU membership, which he, as everyone knows, narrowly lost. Normally, Britain’s flexible political system could accommodate one party’s indulgence of extremism: if the Conservatives found themselves advocating something radical such as leaving the EU, this would typically open up space in the center for Labour to position itself as the defender of economically pragmatic close relations with it. However, Labour is currently led by the far-left and anti-European Jeremy Corbyn, keen to facilitate Brexit and take advantage of the economic chaos to implement a radical socialist agenda.
Superimposed on these new, more polarized parties are the new, essentially sectarian political identities created by the Brexit referendum itself. Leavers and remainers move in different social circles and have different understandings of the central facts of Brexit. Though there are still pragmatists in the center, political careers are now made by appealing to the tribes’ core beliefs. Thus Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, a remainer in 2016, has now declared himself unafraid of the harshest, “no deal” Brexit, while former Education Secretary Justine Greening has been working on bringing about a new referendum since Theresa May sacked her in the summer.
This is the context in which to understand the rampant reports of conspiratorial plots within the cabinet: remainers plotting a new referendum (and seeking legal advice on whether Britain’s decision to leave could be revoked by executive action, without consulting Parliament) and anti-Europeans threatening to resign from the government, reject the withdrawal agreement Theresa May negotiated with the EU, and leave without any sort of deal at all. (The Bank of England estimated that such a “disorderly” Brexit would cause unemployment to almost double, inflation to rise to more than 6 percent, house prices to fall by 30 percent, and the pound to fall below parity with the euro.)
Britain’s constitutional crisis running in parallel to its Brexit debate has made it much harder for any of these plots to come to fruition. There is no majority for any policy at all in Parliament.Whereas cabinet resignations were once accompanied by the prospect of the resigned minister and her entourage joining the leader’s opponents in a vote of no confidence, May’s year of immunity has closed off that option; resignation will just produce ex-cabinet ministers, fuming on the back benches without a ministerial car and salary.
The true limits of their power now revealed, no-deal Brexiteers are now contemplating a legislative strike, which would deprive the government of its majority for everything except confidence votes, or even forming a new hard-right party. That would allow them to vote against the government in a confidence vote and provoke an election. The effect of a new party would, however, be to split the anti-Labour vote and give Jeremy Corbyn a good chance of entering Downing Street.
But nor is there any easy path to a second referendum, as remainers hope. If nothing changes, Britain will leave the EU on March 29, 2019. Holding a referendum requires an Act of Parliament, and thus continuous control of the legislative timetable to avoid a filibuster. In practice, that too requires a change of government, as well as for the EU to grant an extension to the Article 50 negotiating period to allow one to take place. Even if remainers managed to get this far, referendum proposals would be accompanied by intense and polarizing debates about the referendum question (or questions—a two-stage referendum has been suggested), the franchise (one prominent anti-Brexit group wants to give EU citizens in the U.K. and British citizens in the EU the right to vote in it), the regulation of political spending, and the conduct of a campaign. Extreme Brexiteers have already begun civil disobedience, though their competence leaves something to be desired.
The only certainty is that Britain’s political rewards now go to men and women who promote polarization, not compromise. And because the country is divided in two almost exactly equal halves, neither side can win decisively.Just as remainers have not accepted the legitimacy of the 2016 referendum, leavers won’t accept the legitimacy of a plebiscite held in 2019. Expect divisions to deepen and radicalization to progress further. David Cameron’s decision to hold this referendum about a question so fundamental to Britain’s national identity opened up this chasm in the country.
It will remain unsealable until the baby-boom generation is no longer with us. This group, who grew up in the glow of the Allies’ victory in World War II but who missed out on the bloody fighting itself, is disproportionately pro-Brexit. The relatively few old enough to remember the war are considerably more likely to oppose leaving the EU. Meanwhile the young now identify as pro-European in a way that would never have occurred to them before the 2016 vote. The weight of their increasing numbers will eventually tell. Yet the boomers’ demographic albatross will press further still if, as is in my view probable, English political chaos stimulates Scotland to choose independence and (though this is less likely) Northern Ireland to unite with the Irish Republic. Losing those two pro-EU territories would allow Brexiteers to keep up the fight for perhaps another five or 10 years longer than they otherwise could.
A decade of intense political conflict is a grim prospect for a country with few formal institutions and weak legal oversight of the political process. The desire to seize positions of power and hold them against equally matched enemies is more associated with countries on the descent toward civil war than mature liberal democracies like the United Kingdom. A different American government would make the resolution of conflict in one of its most important allies a major foreign-policy priority. It only compounds Britain’s misfortune that the Trump administration has neither the attention nor inclination nor ability to get involved.
President Trump shut down his Donald J. Trump Foundation, the subject of a lawsuit alleging Trump used the charity's money for personal and political gain.(Joyce Koh/The Washington Post)
President Trump has agreed to shut down his embattled personal charity and to give away its remaining money amid allegations that he used the foundation for his personal and political benefit, New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood announced Tuesday.
Underwood said that the Donald J. Trump Foundation is dissolving as her office pursues its lawsuit against the charity, Trump and his three eldest children.
The suit, filed in June, alleged “persistently illegal conduct” at the foundation, which Trump began in 1987. Underwood is continuing to seek more than $2.8 million in restitution and has asked a judge to ban the Trumps temporarily from serving on the boards of other New York nonprofit organizations.
Underwood said Tuesday that her investigation found “a shocking pattern of illegality involving the Trump Foundation — including unlawful coordination with the Trump presidential campaign, repeated and willful self-dealing, and much more.”
“This is an important victory for the rule of law, making clear that there is one set of rules for everyone,” she added in a statement.
The shuttering comes after The Washington Post documented apparent lapses at the foundation.
Trump used the charity’s money to pay legal settlements for his private business, to purchase art for one of his clubs and to make a prohibited political donation.
Trump denied that the organization had done anything wrong. In late 2016, he said he wanted to close the foundation before he became president to avoid the appearance of conflicts of interest. But the New York attorney general blocked that move while the investigation continued.
The settlement with Underwood’s office represents a concession by Trump to a state inquiry he has decried as a partisan attack. The case is one of numerous legal investigations of Trump organizations that have proliferated during his presidency.
In a court filing in New York, Underwood said that the foundation’s remaining $1.75 million will be distributed to other charities approved by her office and a state judge.
Alan Futerfas, an attorney for the Trump Foundation, issued a statement criticizing Underwood for “politicizing” the agreement.
“The Foundation has been seeking to dissolve and distribute its remaining assets to worthwhile charitable causes since Donald J. Trump’s victory in the 2016 Presidential election,” Futerfas said. “Unfortunately, the NYAG sought to prevent dissolution for almost two years, thereby depriving those most in need” of the foundation’s money, he said.
Futerfas said that, over its life, the foundation had given away about $19 million, including $8.25 million donated by Trump himself. The rest of the money came from other donors, notably pro-wrestling moguls Vince and Linda McMahon, who gave $5 million. Trump later chose Linda McMahon to head the Small Business Administration.
As part of its agreement with the attorney general’s office, the foundation will be required to sell its remaining assets and donate the proceeds, said Amy Spitalnick, a spokeswoman for Underwood.
That includes a Denver Broncos football helmet signed by former quarterback Tim Tebow, which Trump bought at a charity auction in 2012 with $12,000 in Trump Foundation money. The charity also owns two large portraits of Trump, for which Trump paid a combined $30,000 in foundation money.
Trump now values the three items — for which he spent $42,000 in charity money — at a combined $975, according to a recent IRS filing.
The attorney general’s suit alleges that Trump used his charity’s money as his own piggy bank — including to help his presidential campaign by paying for giveaways at Iowa rallies.
“The Foundation was little more than a checkbook for payments to not-for-profits from Mr. Trump or the Trump Organization,” Underwood wrote in the initial suit.
The Post’s reporting showed that, for years, Trump appeared to use the foundation — which was, by law, an independent entity — to make payments that bolstered his interests.
The largest donation in the charity’s history — a $264,231 gift to the Central Park Conservancy in 1989 — appeared to benefit Trump’s business: It paid to restore a fountain outside Trump’s Plaza Hotel. The smallest, a $7 foundation gift to the Boy Scouts that same year, appeared to benefit Trump’s family. It matched the amount required to enroll a boy in the Scouts the year that his son Donald Trump Jr. was 11.
The attorney general’s investigation turned up evidence that Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump — all listed as officers of the charity — had never held a board meeting. The board hadn’t met since 1999. The charity’s official treasurer, Trump Organization executive Allen Weisselberg, told investigators that he wasn’t aware that he was on the board.
State investigators asked him what the foundation’s policies were to determine whether its payments were proper.
“There’s no policy, just so you understand,” Weisselberg said.
At one point, Trump used the charity’s money to make a $25,000 political donation to Florida Attorney General Pamela Bondi (R). The charity didn’t tell the IRS about that, as required — and instead listed that donation as a gift to an unrelated charity in Kansas with a similar name. Trump’s team blamed accounting mistakes.
In 2016, state investigators allege, Trump effectively “ceded control” of his charity to his political campaign. He raised more than $2 million at a fundraiser in Iowa that flowed into the foundation. Then, the state said, Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski determined when and where it would be given away.
“Is there any way we can make some disbursements . . . this week while in Iowa?” Lewandowski wrote in an email cited in Underwood’s lawsuit.
Trump gave away oversize checks from the foundation at campaign events in the key early-voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire, pausing his campaign rallies to donate to local veterans’ groups.
Federal law prohibits charities from participating in political campaigns. As president, Trump has called repeatedly for that law to be repealed.
Underwood has asked the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Election Commission to investigate whether the Trump charity broke tax laws. Both agencies have declined to comment.
In his statement Tuesday, Futerfas praised the foundation for operating with “virtually zero expenses.”
Indeed, the charity had no paid employees.
It also spent very little on advice from lawyers. From 2001 to 2016, the foundation spent $163 on legal fees — and, in many of those years, it spent nothing.
The demise of the Trump Foundation still leaves one mystery regarding a large portrait of Trump that the future president bought for $20,000 in 2007, using money from the charity. What became of it after that is unknown.
In 2017, after The Post wrote about the portrait, Trump listed it as an asset on his charity’s IRS forms. He assigned it a value of $700. But he did not say where it was.
On this year’s tax forms, however, the painting’s value was listed at $0. Trump’s attorney did not respond to a query from The Post about why.
Three and a half thousand troops are on standby, while letters to 140,000 businesses are warning them to prepare for the worst. The government says that although pursuing Theresa May’s Brexit deal is still its top priority, it’s now begun ramping up its preparations for no deal.
Details of where £2bn in funding will be spent have been revealed, while advice for the public will be rolled out over the coming days on everything from potential traffic chaos to credit card fees.
the celebration meeting marking the 40th anniversary of China's "reform and opening up" policy at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on December 18, 2018. Source: Wang Zhao/AFP
TODAY marks the 40th anniversary of the “reform and opening up” of communist China to outside economic forces.
President Xi Jinping honoured the occasion with a 90-minute address to Communist Party leaders at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Xi used his time to shore up confidence in his leadership and aggressively warn other countriesthat no one can “dictate” China’s economic development path.
His warning comes amid a mounting trade war between Beijing and Washington that is spooking investors and rattling stock markets. But this uncertainty hasn’t changed the fact that China remains an economic powerhouse and the world’s second-biggest economy. At the rate they’re going, it likely won’t take them long to knock the United States off the top spot.
Less than 60 years ago, China was in the grip of a famine that would kill over 15 million people and put an end to Chairman Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward.
The landmark social and economic reform led by Mao’s communist party left China crippled.
Struggling to feed its people and with economic development slowing, the turnaround only came when Deng Xiaoping took over in 1978 following the death of Mao two years earlier.
With over 60 percent of the population living in abject poverty, Deng was acutely aware the planned economy imposed under Mao wasn’t working. Starting with agricultural reform, Deng immediately set about launching a series of measures that would bolster private enterprise and open up the economy to foreign trade and investment.
Deng’s policies gave China a lifeline that has taken it from closed-off communist to successful capitalist in just a few decades. Not only giving its international image a dramatic facelift, but changing the mindset of the Chinese people.
And the change has been radical.
China’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) today is more than 80 times bigger than it was at the end of 1978. The poverty rate among the rural population dropped to 3.1 percent last year from 97.5 percent 40 years ago. And the country now boasts the most dollar billionaires in the world with 620.
It is now the only real challenger to the supremacy of the United States (US$20.4 trillion GDP), clocking in a GDP of over US$14 trillion in 2018. That’s US$9 trillion more than Japan in third place with US$5 trillion nominal GDP.
Its success has made it a superpower on the world stage and given it powerful leverage in negotiations.
Political analysts have raised concern Beijing is using its economic clout to wield power and gain influence across the globe; pouring money into developing countries to shore up loyalty and secure votes in international forums.
It’s hard to find a country these days that hasn’t been touched by Chinese investment on some level.
Money has become the superpower’s primary means of diplomacy, spending US$48 billion on countries in Asia Pacific between 2000 and 2016.
This year, Beijing announced it has doubled its financial aid and investment pledges to Africa and promised to waive the debt of the continent’s least-developed nations.
Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa (2nd R) meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping (2nd L) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on September 5, 2018, a day after the conclusion of the Forum On China-Africa Cooperation. Source: Lintao Zhang/AFP
The investment only looks set to grow under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a flagship of Xi’s administration.
But while China has become a more prominent player politically, access to Chinese markets and the double standards imposed on outsiders have some questioning just how “open” its economy really is.
Foreign businesses are losing patience with the discrimination and barriers to competition they continue to face, and the US and other developed nations fear China’s growth is happening at their expense.
This is one of the pillars of US President Donald Trump’s complaints as he forges ahead with threats of tariff hikes if things don’t change.
The US and China have agreed on a truce to the trade war and imposed a 90-day period to come to an agreement. Trump has made it clear, however, that should they fail to reach a solution, he won’t hesitate to impose the planned 25 percent tariff on US$200 billion of Chinese goods.
The uncertainty has people worried and the effects of the trade war are predicted to show a slump in China’s growth in 2019. But China’s economy has proven its resilience and it will take a lot more than that to topple this behemoth.
There is a popular proverb “Aliar has no legs to stand upon” which essentially implies that the falsehoodcannot stand truth for long but what if it has wings instead because then it isfar more swift and versatile to escalate untruth and disinformation over alarge area and population without constraints of time and space.
This appears to be absolutely true in the context of the current Indian politics and some politicians. Based on a few half-baked stories in some Indian magazines is far, well known for their anti-government reporting, the top a large the Indian National Congress had started a systematic campaign personally against the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government more than a year back making allegations of corrupt practices in the Rafale Fighter jets deal signed with the French government in September 2016. After taking its toll in the recent assembly elections in few states, this campaign reached an anticlimax on 14 December 2018 when the Supreme Court of India in a landmarkjudgment cleared the “Rafale Deal” of all charges.
The principal political party in opposition, in a big hurry to get back its lost fiefdom and electorate, resorted to trading charges and allegations in the Rafale deal concluded in September 2016 at the inter-governmental level personally against the prime minister over a year back despite the latter’s unblemished record of personal integrity and fiscal discipline in his long political career as the Chief Minister of Gujarat and, now, as the Prime Minister at the Centre. Emboldened with the success of the fake news and disinformation at the crucial election time, a fresh barrage of allegations has, however, been levied by the opposition party President despite the clean chit given by the 3-judges bench headed by the Chief Justice of India (CJI).
Attempts were also made by the principal opposition and Modi-baiters to derive a parallel between the Bofors Scam of late nineteen-eighties and the current Rafale deal though the main difference remains that the former scam was unearthed by the then ruling Congress Defence Minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh, a man of known honesty and integrity, who was later discredited from the party as punishment for exposing the scam, while the alleged Rafale scam is the product of the fertile minds and wishful imagination of some detractors and the main opposition party out to derive political mileage during the crucial election time taking advantage of the vicious reporting of some anti-government elements in the electronic and print media.
When the allegations of corruption were levied in 2017 against the inter-governmental Rafale deal of 2016 for the supply of 36 fighter aircrafts to meet the urgent operational requirements of the Indian Air Force, in terms of over-pricing, procedural violations, technology and commercial favourism (cronyism), several blogs and articles came in media and press in favour and against the deal perplexing the psyche of the large Indian populace for months together. With a view to find truth, this author too made an in-depth study and analysis of all related issues and contributed a comprehensive article on the subject in August 2018. The author now notes with satisfaction that the judgment delivered on 14 December by the Supreme Court has vindicated the analysis and inferences drawn by him earlier.
Writ Petitions and Verdict
The principal opposition party on many occasions in the past disrupted parliamentary proceedings to demand a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to probe the Rafale deal besides also making noise for the CBI investigation. As the move lacked any material evidence or lead justifying such probe, the joint attempts of detractors and opposition party were not successful. Consequently, four writ petitions were filed in the Supreme Court a few months back by different people in the form of the public interest litigations (PILs). The Apex court has recorded in their judgment that these petitions were examined by them under the Article 32 of Constitution which provides the right to citizens to move the Court for the Constitutional remedies provided under the fundamental rights.
The first petition was filed by one ML Sharma, an independent lawyer, a compulsive petitioner and ill-famed defence counsel of the accused in the famous 2012 Nirbhaya Gang Rape case, seeking appointment of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) monitored by the Supreme Court and quashing the Inter-Governmental Agreement of 2016 for the purchase of 36 Rafale Jets. The second petition was filed by one Vineet Dhanda, claiming to be a public spirited man, allegedly based on the newspaper article/reports. The third petition related to Sanjay Singh, Member of Parliament, mainly alleging illegality and lack of transparency in procurement. The fourth petition was filed by two disgruntled veteran politicians and a compulsive lawyer-cum-activist again claiming to be “public spirited Indians” aggrieved by non-registration of FIR by the CBI pursuant to a complaint made by them. This author has consciously used the term ‘compulsive’ because the gentlemen are known for frequently resorting to filing PILs in courts mostly on charges found not sustainable in judicial review.
While the bonafides of the third and fourth petitioners and their political background is well known, the first two claim to be independent spirited men but it is well known fact in the Indian politics how the political parties move courts by “proxy petitioners” without identifying themselves as party. It offers them the comfort and liberty to later refute or register disagreement with the outcome of the judicial review. The Apex Court after hearing the petitioners and government reply including the price details of the fighter jet given in a sealed cover delivered their judgment on 14 December 2018. Briefly, the judgment says that the Court has not found any reason to doubt the procurement process, there is no need to probe the pricing of the deal, no commercial favourism has been made by the government to any party, the necessity and quality of the fighter aircraft is beyond doubt and the Indian Air Force cannot afford to be unprepared in the prevailing security scenario in the sub-continent. Besides, the Court has categorically used rather harsh words against the petitioners by recording that the “perception of individuals cannot be basis of fishing and roving inquiry”. The last para 34 of the judgment reads as under:
“In view of our findings on all the three aspects, and having heard the matter in detail, we find no reason for any intervention by this Court on the sensitive issue of purchase of 36 defence aircrafts by the Indian Government. Perception of individuals cannot be the basis of a fishing and roving enquiry by this Court, especially in such matters. We, thus, dismiss all the writ petitions, leaving it to the parties to bear their own costs. We, however, make it clear that our views as above are primarily from the standpoint of the exercise of the jurisdiction under Article 32 of the Constitution of India which has been invoked in the present group of cases.”
Scope and Extent of the Judicial Review
In their judicial review, the Apex Court has examined the whole issue from the points of view of the decision making process to look into the compliances of the laid down procedure, pricing details of the aircraft in the light of the claims/allegations of over-pricing of the deal and offset issues to see if any commercial favourism has been done in the process. In addition, the Apex Court has also commented on the need and quality of the fighter aircraft. Incidentally, these issues were also examined by the author in his article “Indian Rafale Deal: Ignorance is Bliss!” in August 2018.
(1) Decision Making Process
In their twenty-nine page judgment para 16 to 23, the apex court has examined the decision making process of the Government of India in the context of the Rafale deal. The judgment has quoted important provisions of the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) 2002 as revised from time to time, various milestones during the procurement, the reasons why the earlier process was deadlocked,10 April 2015 joint statement of the Indian Prime Minister and French President regarding purchase of 36 Rafales in fly-away condition and subsequent procedural milestones including the approvals of the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) and Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS). The Court has not found any flaw in the decision making process as against the repeated allegation by the leaders of the Congress party in the press and public forums that even the Defence Minister was kept in dark and the decision was solely taken by Prime Minister Modi.
Two points included in the judgment as the main reasons for the deadlock with the Dassault Aviation were: i) Man-hours that would be required to produce the aircraft in India: HAL required 2.7 times higher Man-hours compared to the French side for the manufacture of Rafale aircraft in India; and ii) Dassault Aviation as the seller was required to undertake necessary contractual obligation for 126 aircraft (18 direct fly-away and 108 aircraft manufactured in India) as per RFP requirements. Issues related to contractual obligation and responsibility for 108 aircraft manufactured in India could not be resolved.
Apart from examining the process, the Court had also interacted with the senior Air Force Officers who answered Court queries in respect of different aspects, including that of the acquisition process and pricing. The Court recorded their satisfaction that there was no occasion to doubt the process, and even if minor deviations have occurred, that would not result in either setting aside the contract or requiring a detailed scrutiny by the Court. Para 23 of the judgment reads as under:
“We may also note that the process was concluded for 36 Rafale fighter jet aircrafts on 23rd September, 2016. Nothing was called into question, then. It is only taking advantage of the statement by the exPresident of France, Francois Hollande that these set of petitions have been filed, not only qua the aspect which formed the statement, that is, the issue of IOPs but also with respect to the entire decision making process and pricing. We do not consider it necessary to dwell further into this issue or to seek clause by clause compliances.”
It may be relevant to mention here that the ex-President of France had made statement to a prodding journalist in a different context involving some conflict of interests and then he had quickly retracted from his statement too. The issue has time and again been clarified by the Dassault Aviation and French government that the OEM had complete liberty in selection of offset partners without pressure from any side. It is well known that French Dassault was in touch with Indian Reliance Company since 2012. Needless to add that the step by step development of the procurement process since June 2001, points on which the deal was stuck up, the initiative taken by the Indian Prime Minister at the request of Air Force in April 2015 and subsequent signing of the inter-governmental agreement in September 2016 after following the due procedure was detailed by this author too in his August 2018 article. Following two paragraphs are relevant from the section “MMRCA – A Synopsis” of the ibid article.
“…At this juncture the Indian Prime Minister took over the mantle of leadership to resolve the deadlock even though hard and bold decisions were required. During his France visit in April 2015, in the joint press statement of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President François Hollande on 10 April, the Indian Prime Minister declared that India will purchase 36 Rafales directly from France and the contract to this effect shall be sealed soon. On 31 July 2015, the Defence Minister too gave a statement in the Upper House of Parliament that the ongoing process for 126 MMRCA was officially withdrawn by the government.
This followed negotiations and understanding with the French government at the officials’ level for about a year on the subject. During this period, the approval of the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), inter-ministerial consultations and approval of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) was taken with due process. Finally, on 23 September 2016, Indian Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian signed an inter-governmental agreement (IGA) for the purchase of 36 off-the-shelf Rafales in a deal worth €7.8 billion with an option for 18 more at the same inflation-adjusted price. The first Rafales under the agreement are expected to be delivered by late 2019, and entire delivery will be completed within the next six years. The comprehensive deal includes aircraft, associated equipment and weapon systems, India-specific adds-on, spares, training, logistics and maintenance.”
(2) Pricing
Paras 24 to 26 of the judgment deal with the pricing of the fighter jets. It has been recorded that the pricing of the aircrafts was challenged by the petitioners on the ground of the huge escalation based on material available in the public domain i.e. magazines and newspapers, and that the Court had sought cost details in a sealed cover to satisfy their conscience. Among other aspects regarding the sensitivity of the cost vis-à-vis security, it is mentioned that the pricing details have been shared with the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) and the report of the CAG i.e. the Statutory Auditor has been examined by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). There is something amiss in this part which may have occurred due to typo or misinterpretation.
As the leader of the opposition heads the PAC, he has promptly denied receipt of the CAG report by the PAC making allegations on the government for misleading the Court. On their part, the Government too has promptly moved an application to the Court to rectify the typographical error in the judgment. As it appears, the pricing details were rendered by the government to the CAG which has not finalized its report as yet. As per procedure, the CAG is required to prepare its audit report(s) on the government accounts as also other subjects specifically chosen and such reports are then laid in the Parliament before being made available to the PAC and public domain. The Apex Court has, however, made following final remarks on pricing in their judgment:
“We have examined closely the price details and comparison of the prices of the basic aircraft along with escalation costs as under the original RFP as well as under the IGA. We have also gone through the explanatory note on the costing, item wise. Suffice it to say that as per the price details, the official respondents claim there is a commercial advantage in the purchase of 36 Rafale aircrafts. The official respondents have claimed that there are certain better terms in IGA qua the maintenance and weapon package. It is certainly not the job of this Court to carry out a comparison of the pricing details in matters like the present. We say no more as the material has to be kept in a confidential domain.”
From the above, one gets a clear indication that the government has indeed shared full pricing details including cost comparison and item-wise details with the Court while asserting on its secrecy for security and other obligatory reasons under the two governments’ bilateral agreement. It is also pretty clear that the Court has not observed any discrepancy or gap regarding the alleged price escalation by the petitioners. While analyzing the indicative price details of various components as available in the public domain, this author had earlier pointed out that the exorbitant price quoted by the critics and detractors is on account of the misplaced comparison. While the government has shared the cost of the bare-bone aircraft, the critics and detractors are taking the cost of the aircraft in fly-away condition as came out in media that includes many other India-specific adds-on, weaponry and missile systems, spares and logistics/maintenance for a certain period.
Those who have some knowledge of the “dynamics of the Defence procurement and expenditure ” worldwide would also know how the respective governments keep such details under wrap for the strategic reasons and India too is not an exception. In the past and even now, the Russia has been major and most dependable supplier of the defence equipment under inter-governmental route and any objections or allegations about it never surfaced up from any source during the past decades. The Rafale deal too is under government-to-government arrangement. On the other hand, almost every major defence deal from the Western private sources has been under controversy for opacity and corrupt practices under the erstwhile Congress governments. This author does not endorse opacity but is pretty well aware with his own experience in the Defence Sector that this culture is a product of the bureaucratic working evolved during long Congress governments’ rule. An inter-governmental agreement rules out the intervention of the middlemen who are the main link and source of corruption and kickbacks in international deals and in Rafale deal there was no middleman.
(3) Offsets
Para 27 to 33 of the aforesaid judgment cover the relevant offset guidelines and procedure, averments of parties, role of the Indian government and vendor, analysis of the Court and final inference drawn. The Court has taken a note of the government position that any offset proposal regarding Indian Offset Partners (IOPs) has not been received so far from the vendor, that the OEM is free to select its offset partners as per the offset guidelines, and also that the Dassault Aviation has issued a press release stating that it has signed partnership agreements with several companies and is negotiating with over a hundred other companies.
The Court also took cognizance of the recent origin of the Reliance Aerostructure Ltd in a joint venture with the Dassault, and the press release suggesting that there was an arrangement between the parent Reliance company and Vendor starting from the year 2012. The Court has taken a view that what transpired between the two corporates would be a matter best left to them, being matters of their commercial interests, as perceived by them. As far as the role of HAL, insofar as the procurement of 36 aircrafts is concerned, there is no specific role envisaged. Here the Court has taken the cognizance of the contractual problems because of which Dassault was circumspect about HAL carrying out the contractual obligation, and which is also responsible for the non-conclusion of the earlier contract. Taking all related aspects of the offset issues, the Apex Court has reached the following conclusion:
“…Once again, it is neither appropriate nor within the experience of this Court to step into this arena of what is technically feasible or not. The point remains that DPP 2013 envisages that the vendor/OEM will choose its own IOPs. In this process, the role of the Government is not envisaged and, thus, mere press interviews or suggestions cannot form the basis for judicial review by this Court, especially when there is categorical denial of the statements made in the Press, by both the sides. We do not find any substantial material on record to show that this is a case of commercial favouritism to any party by the Indian Government, as the option to choose the IOP does not rest with the Indian Government.”
In fact, this author has earlier noted and pointed out that the issues of the manufacture of 108 aircrafts in the HAL and the discharge of 50 percent offset obligation by the OEM as provided in tender documents were two entirely distinct and unlinked matters in the earlier contractual process that did not materialize. In fact, any role of the HAL in the discharge of the offset obligation was never envisaged, contrary to what the detractors and leaders of the opposition are erroneously or deliberately claiming. Quite obviously, due to lack of the in-depth knowledge and clear understanding of the technical and financial issues of the defence procurement procedure, not only politicians in the opposition but also the ruling party have frequently linked the offset issue with the HAL while debating the issue in media or press. This position was amply made clear in author’s previous article too in August 2018:
“The fact is the French side has committed about 30 percent for the military aerospace research and development programmes and the remaining 20 percent for the various components and spares for the said aircraft. By implication, this would mean that apart from the Reliance, the DRDO and several other big and small Indian companies would most likely get business opportunities during the next 4-5 years out of an estimated Euro 3 billion value. The main objective of the offset is to leverage capital acquisitions for the development of the indigenous defence industry and research.…People both politicians and others appear ignorant or at least pretending so when they sing merits of the HAL while levying charges of cronyism because the manufacture of aircraft in India and the discharge of offset obligations by the OEM are two distinct and unrelated activities.”
(4) Defence Preparedness and Quality of Aircraft
The above issues, per se, were not under the scrutiny of the Apex Court. However, in their landmark judgment, the Court also observed that the country cannot afford to be unprepared or underprepared in a situation where the adversaries are stated to have acquired not only fourth generation but even fifth generation aircraft, of which the country has none. It also said that there was no doubt about the need and quality of the Rafale jets. For instance, the Chengdu J-20 is a twinjet, all-weather stealth fifth-generation fighter aircraft reportedly already in service of the People’s Liberation Army Airforce of China in Asia. These observations of the Court are important in the light of the fact that one of the petitions had also sought annulment of the inter-governmental agreement for the supply of 36 fighter jets.
Court Verdict and JPC
After the Apex Court dismissed the petitions, the government and ruling party has welcomed the verdict as the victory of truth. In a press conference, a senior minister dubbed the allegations on the Rafale deal as “fiction writing” impinging on the national security. In a veiled attack on those opposing the deal with the allegations of corruption, he said that the disrupters have lost on all counts and those who manufactured falsehood compromised the security of the country.
On the other hand, the principal opposition party put a question mark on the verdict and competency of the Supreme Court and later also claimed that the Court has vindicated its stand that the issue of “corruption” in the Rafale fighter jet agreement cannot be decided by it. It reiterated the demand and challenged the Centre to constitute JPC to probe the deal. According to them, only a JPC can probe and bring out the corruption in the deal. In fact, in a fiery speech during a press conference, the Party President called Prime Minister by name citing ‘the entire country knows, chowkidar chor hai’ and that ‘he may hide and run but won’t be saved the day there is an enquiry’. Emboldened with the recent success of his party in three state assembly elections, it was possibly an obvious threat hinting post-2019 Parliamentary election scenario.
There is an obvious reason why interested political parties always seek a JPC probe in contentious issues. Actually, JPC is constituted from amongst the Members of Parliament of both the houses with a proportional representation of the political parties. In such a forum, the members usually split on the predicted political line and any recommendation or outcome is seldom based on consensus but the political agenda and objective of the interested parties is largely achieved merely by the constitution of the Committee and dissenting voices of the members. When the apex judicial institution has impartially examined all aspects including pricing of the deal before delivering the verdict, such demand has no justification other than an attempt now to derive the political mileage and intended objective through the JPC route.
Words of Wisdom
While the aggression of the principal opposition party on the Rafale deal for the political reasons is well understood but questioning the authority and jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, attempts to misinterpret and exploit typo in the judgment and distancing itself from the judicial review and PILs – widely interpreted as proxy petitions, is indeed unethical and in bad taste suggesting a dangerous trend in the Indian politics and democracy. Of late, a trend has started that if a favourable judgment has not come, some political parties and people try to deny it and even criticize the apex judicial institution raising controversies. In the instant case the principal opposition party has quoted the Supreme Court judgment as self-contradictory and shocking with factual inaccuracies (possibly referring to a reported typo) and that the government’s curative petition adds insult to the injury caused; hence the Apex Court should charge the government with perjury and contempt of court.
In fact, only recently the principal opposition party had gone to the extent of moving a case in the Parliament to impeach the then Chief Justice of India. The other constitutional and statutory institutions in the country too are not spared. In the event of loss in elections, vicious allegations are made that the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) have been rigged and even the Election Commission has often been targeted with the allegation of favourism by the same people/party. Similar treatment is also meted out to the institutions like CAG, Vigilance Commission, constitutional posts and Indian Army. If the institutions are not allowed to work independently and judiciously for the ephemeral selfish interests by the political parties, the time is not far when the people of India will lose their faith in the political system and democracy leading to anarchy and chaos.
The principal opposition party and its leader has continuously raised rhetoric against the Rafale deal calling the Prime Minister by name as “chor hai” (He is thief) without any cognizable evidence or lead. To some extent, the strategy has worked to their advantage in terms of recent electoral successes. Even the Supreme Court acknowledged the relevance of the national security and that such issues need a more sensible and discreet approach but some political parties have no qualms about stretching things to any extent even jeopardizing national security so long it serves their political interests and ends. This is what has happened in the case of Rafale deal. Political rivalry and consequent differences and criticism should be alright but abusing and demeaning the constitutional institutions and offices like Prime Minister and President of the country in the process is disgraceful and inexcusable. Similarly, to serve domestic political interests, the acts of compromising the national security and friendly relations with all-weather dependable allies like France too are political blunders and inexcusable acts. Such acts may earn temporary haul but none should remain in doubt that the people of India will soon realize the truth behind these uncanny games and punish such parties and people. The truth cannot be concealed or suppressed for long.
By Rathindra Kuruwita-December 18, 2018, 12:00 pm 
Prime Minister Theresa May s greeted by Britain's Queen Elizabeth II at a ceremonial welcome for King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands in London on Oct. 23, 2018. (Matt Dunham/AFP/Getty Images)
