Rafale deal papers should be published : Chidambaram

Senior Congress leader Chidambaram, Thursday demanded publication of all documents related to the Rafale aircraft deal, saying Article 19 of the Constitution ensured people’s rights regarding freedom of speech and expression.

He also said the celebrated judgement of the US Supreme Court in 1971 in the case of the Pentagon Papers was a “complete answer” to the attorney general’s arguments that the media cannot publish “so-called secret papers”.

“We fully support the publication of documents pertaining to the Rafale deal. The argument that they are ‘stolen papers’ flies in the face of Article 19 of the Constitution,” he said in separate tweets.

P Chidambaram was referring to the case on June 30, 1971, when the Supreme Court of the United States overturned the Richard Nixon administration’s effort to restrain ‘The New York Times’ and ‘The Washington Post’ from publishing a top-secret history of the Vietnam War called the Pentagon Papers.