The Supreme Court today dismissed a batch of review petitions challenging its December 2018 verdict in the Rafale case. In December, the apex court had dismissed two petitions, including one filed by former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie and advocate Prashant Bhushan, seeking a court-monitored probe into the Rafale deal.

The Hindu‘s former editor and co-chair of The Hindu Group, Malini Parthasarathy, tweeted in support of the Centre. She called Prime Minister Narendra Modi “unimpeachable and unquestionable as regards the Rafale issue”.

Ironically, the investigative reporting on the Rafale deal was arguably led by The Hindu, whose former editor N Ram wrote three pieces on the deal. The Supreme Court had also examined various documents published in The Hindu when investigating allegations against the Rafale deal. At the time, Attorney General KK Venugopal had argued that these documents were “stolen”. This was strongly refuted by Ram, who said, “…we got them from confidential sources and no force on earth can make me or us reveal the source of the documents, because we have given our word.”