{
 "no": 5,
 "id": "case-5",
 "sk": 20180201,
 "year": 2018,
 "date": "Deal 2016. Row 2018 to 2019",
 "cat": "Crony capital (alleged)",
 "sev": "amber",
 "title": "Rafale. The pricing and offset row",
 "stamp": "Alleged. Courts declined a probe.",
 "human": {
  "v": "No direct death toll. The stake is public trust in defence spending.",
  "est": false
 },
 "cost": {
  "v": "Opposition alleged a far higher per-jet price than the earlier negotiation (<b>contested</b>)",
  "est": true
 },
 "what": "India agreed to buy 36 Rafale fighter jets from France in a government-to-government deal, dropping an earlier plan to buy more jets with local manufacture.",
 "dodge": "When the opposition alleged the per-jet price was inflated and questioned an offset contract routed to a newly formed private firm, the government withheld the pricing on security grounds and refused a Joint Parliamentary Committee. The absence of any independent scrutiny, not a proven crime, is the accountability gap.",
 "ministers": [
  {
   "n": "Narendra Modi",
   "r": "Prime Minister"
  },
  {
   "n": "Nirmala Sitharaman",
   "r": "Defence Minister from 2017"
  }
 ],
 "pos": "The government denied any irregularity; the Supreme Court declined to order an investigation and dismissed review petitions.",
 "alleg": "The price and offset claims are <em>opposition allegations the courts did not uphold</em>. No wrongdoing was established; the criticism is of secrecy and the refusal of a JPC.",
 "alt": "An independent audit trail and parliamentary oversight of pricing on mega defence deals, protecting real secrets without shielding the whole deal from scrutiny.",
 "sources": [
  {
   "label": "SC judgment, Manohar Lal Sharma v Modi (Dec 2018)",
   "url": "https://indiankanoon.org/doc/95183857/",
   "tier": 1
  },
  {
   "label": "PRS summary, CAG Report No. 3 of 2019 (Rafale)",
   "url": "https://prsindia.org/policy/report-summaries/capital-acquisition-indian-air-force",
   "tier": 2
  }
 ],
 "caseUrl": "https://whoisresponsible.xyz/case/case-5/"
}