Four separate PILs have been filed before the Supreme Court regarding the Rafale deal. All the pleas have sought a court-monitored investigation into the alleged "corruption" in the deal. he Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Centre to provide information on the pricing of Rafale fighter jets, the deliverables in a controversial Indo-French deal, in a sealed cover. The government has ten days to do so. "The court would also like to be apprised of the details with regard to the pricing/cost, particularly the advantage thereof, [if] any," said a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi in its order. Changing its stand after the Centre filed a "confidential note" regarding the Rafale procurement process, the bench also directed the government to give details on the "core information" regarding the procurement process to the petitioners. The details regarding the selection of the Indian offset partner -- Reliance Defence -- will also have to be shared with the petitioners. The government has so far maintained that the details of the defence deal are "confidential." Earlier this year, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said that the cost per plane of the Rafale jets could not be shared with Parliament due to a secrecy clause. During the hearing, Attorney General KK Venugopal told the court that even the Parliament has not been given the details of the Rafale deal. "Some of these details may be subject to the Official Secrets Act or confidentiality clauses," he argued. Taking note of the objection raised by the Attorney General, the bench said that "details that could legitimately come in [the] public domain" will have to be shared with the petitioners, while the "confidential information" regarding the pricing and the selection of the Indian offset partner will have to be "placed before the court," in a sealed cover. The court has left it to the government to decide what would be the information "legitimately in public domain" which can be shared with the petitioners, but has made it clear that all information will have to be shared with the court. "If you think that anything comes under the Official Secrets Act or is confidential, you say it on affidavit," the court said. All these reports will have to be submitted within 10 days. The Supreme Court will now hear the petitions on November 14. Four separate PILs have been filed before the Supreme Court regarding the Rafale deal. All the pleas have sought a court-monitored investigation into the alleged "corruption" in the deal. The pleas had also raised several questions regarding allegations that defence procurement norms were not followed by the Indian government in inking the deal with its French counterparts. The cost of the deal has also been questioned by the petitions. Interestingly, the Supreme Court has declined to hear arguments from the petitioners for now, observing that the petitions have not raised any questions about the technical specifications of the aircraft, or the suitability of the fighter jets for the Indian Air force. "What has been questioned is the decision-making process and the price or cost of the equipment," the bench noted. On October 10, when the matter was heard by the Supreme Court for the first time, the court had held that it would not go into the issue of pricing of the aircraft. The change in the court's order on Wednesday was welcomed by former minister and petitioner Arun Shourie. "The court has expanded the scope. Without issuing notice to the government directly, they have called for all information. Now we will see what the details of the deal are," Shourie told India Today. The deal in a nutshell: In 2016, India and France signed a deal for 36 Rafale jets, to be delivered to India starting this September. A previous UPA-era deal never went through. Under the final contract, Dassault Aviation, which makes Rafales, needed to make compensation investments (or offsets) in India worth 50 per cent of the value of the purchase. In October 2016, Anil Ambani's Reliance Defence Limited and Dassault announced a joint venture. (Read a timeline of the deal till September 2018 here.) Differences in the UPA and NDA deals: The first deal was for 126 jets: Eighteen to be imported in a fly-away condition, and 108 to be manufactured by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited with help from Dassault. The current deal is for 36 aircraft. As well, the Congress claims its deal was cheaper. Why the deal is controversial The Congress has alleged that the Modi government favoured Anil Ambani's Reliance to HAL's detriment. The row took on an explosive new dimension when Francois Hollande, the man who was France's president when the 2016 deal was inked, said the Indian government "proposed" Reliance Defence as Dassault's Indian partner (for the offset clause of the agreement). "We didn't have any say in the matter," Hollande told Mediapart, a French journal. "We didn't have a choice in the matter; we took the interlocutor who was given to us." Dassault Aviation then said it -- and not the Indian government -- chose Reliance Defence. The removal of two of the CBI's top officials gave the Congress some more ammunition. Rahul Gandhi said Alok Verma, the CBI chief, was sent on leave because the CBI was about to being a probe into Prime Minister Narendra Modi's role in the Rafale deal.