'Rafale deal is not govt-to-govt pact'

New Delhi: In the midst of the ongoing row over 'authenticity' of claims made by Dassault Aviation CEO Éric Trappier over the selection of Reliance as a partner in the Rafale deal, senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal on Wednesday raised fingers over the 'sanctity' of the agreement.

Terming the statements of Trappier that he made during an interview to a private news channel as baseless and factually incorrect, Sibal said that the agreement is not a "government-to-government" pact with France and the Centre should not have signed a contract with Dassault after it turned "non-compliant" by not giving assurances on aircraft quality and on man-hours required for the jet's manufacturing.

Blaming Trappier of lying on the selection of Reliance in the multi-crore fighter plane deal, Sibal said, "There are three things that cannot be hidden such as sun, moon and truth. Men can lie, but facts can't. Similarly, the statements of Trappier are not matching with the facts."

Besides saying the deal was made in gross violations of the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP), Sibal also targeted Dassault CEO for "lying".

"Trappier says they entered into a joint venture because they knew Reliance had the land. But Reliance applied for land on June 16, 2015, much later to their agreement. When they entered the joint venture, they didn't even know that Reliance was going to apply for land," Sibal alleged.

"He (Trappier) also said Dassault didn't go with HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Limited) because it didn't have land. But the fact is HAL had not only applied for land it already had a lot of land in the vicinity of the airport in Bengaluru,' he said, adding that all of Trappier's assertions are not true.

"Interestingly, Reliance was allotted 189 acre of land for the project in August 2015, but it took only 104 acre and final amount was paid in 2017. So the Anil Ambai promoted company was formally incorporated in 2017," Sibal said.

The Congress' fresh attack came on a day when the Supreme Court reserved its judgment into a clutch of petitions questioning the Rafale deal and seeking a court-monitored probe into it.