The Defence Ministry had given a dissent note to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) over sovereign guarantee aspect of the negotiations in the Rafale fighter deal but it had nothing to do with pricing issue, the then Defence Secretary G. Mohan Kumar said on Friday.

“It was about sovereign guarantees and general terms and conditions," Kumar told ANI when asked if he remembered the context of the note.
"The context is there in the newspaper. Whatever has been brought out (in the newspaper), it has nothing to do with pricing. Negotiations are not just for pricing but other things also. It was about sovereign guarantees and general terms and conditions,” he elaborated.

Meanwhile, Air Marshall SBP Sinha, who led the negotiations called the ‘article an attempt to malign the negotiation' that happened for the procurement of the 36 Rafale jets’. He said that the note was internal matter and had nothing to do with the Indian negotiation team that he headed.