In a veiled attack on Congress president Rahul Gandhi, Union Minister of State for External Affairs General VK Singh on Wednesday said those who are levelling accusations over Rafale deal are 'illiterate'.
Slamming critiques Singh said, "Those who are making accusations are illiterate. They don't have any knowledge about it. So it won't be right to further comment on it."
Talking about the involvement of Reliance Group in the Rafale deal, Singh said that its (Reliance) officials have already spoken about it. "Now if you will keep on dragging the name again and again then I can't do anything," he said.
Singh hit out at the Congress president, after latter while addressing a campaign rally for the second phase of assembly polls in Korba, Chhattisgarh cornered Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the fighter jet deal.
Also, the Supreme Court on Wednesday began the crucial hearing of the Rafale deal row. A three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi, Justice S K Kaul, and K M Joseph heard a bunch of petitions pertaining to the Central government's Rafale deal with French aviation company Dassault.
The apex court while hearing the case said that a discussion on the pricing of the Rafale jets can only take place if the facts of the deal are allowed to come into the public domain.
One of the petitioners, Advocate ML Sharma asserted that reports filed by the government in the court revealed "serious fraud" in the decision making process. He also urged that the matter should be heard by a five-judge bench.
Later, the counsel appearing for Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Sanjay Singh apprised the Apex Court that pricing of the Rafale deal was revealed in the Parliament twice, hence, the submission of government that the details cannot be made public was not acceptable.
Thereafter Senior Supreme Court lawyer, Prashant Bhushan, argued that the government's argument of secrecy clause being in place is a "bogus" one.
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