Yashwant Sinha & Ors. v. Central Bureau of Investigation through its Director & Anr.
Background
The petitioners, including former Union Minister Yashwant Sinha, had earlier asked the Supreme Court to direct registration of an FIR and investigation into the government's 2016 deal to buy 36 Rafale fighter jets from France, alleging irregularities in pricing, the decision-making process, and the choice of offset partner. In December 2018 the Court dismissed that writ petition, finding no ground for judicial interference. The petitioners then filed review petitions arguing the Court had overlooked their actual prayer and made factual errors, the government sought correction of a factual error in the earlier judgment about sharing pricing details with the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), and a separate contempt petition was filed against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for publicly claiming the Court had called the Prime Minister a "thief."
Decision Breakdown
The Court first corrected a factual inaccuracy in its 2018 judgment about when CAG pricing details were examined by the Public Accounts Committee, accepting the government's clarification. On the substantive review, the Court held there was no "error apparent on the face of the record" justifying review, reaffirming that its earlier refusal to interfere was based on the limited scope of judicial review (under Article 32) over government procurement and policy decisions, and declined to order prosecution under Section 340 CrPC. In a separate opinion, Justice K.M. Joseph agreed with dismissing the review but added that, independently, Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act (requiring prior government approval before investigating a public servant for official decisions) was itself a bar to the relief sought. On the contempt petition, the Court accepted Rahul Gandhi's affidavit of regret for his "Chowkidar chor hai" remarks as an adequate, if belated, clarification and closed the contempt proceedings with a formal caution to be more careful in political speech about judicial orders in future.
Lesson Learnt
Courts exercise only limited judicial review over high-value government procurement and policy decisions, and a review petition will not succeed merely because a litigant disagrees with the outcome: it requires a genuine error apparent on the record. Separately, public figures who misstate what a court has held can face contempt proceedings, though a credible, timely retraction can lead to the proceedings being closed with a warning rather than punishment.