Rahul may be tried for defaming RSS

NEW DELHI: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi may have to stand trial in a defamation case for blaming the RSS for Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination with the Supreme

NEW DELHI: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi may have to stand trial in a defamation case for blaming the RSS for Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination with the Supreme Court on Tuesday telling him, “You can’t make wholesale denunciation of an organisation.”

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The party said Gandhi will not apologise for his remarks and would substantiate them with historical facts and evidence before the court.

“There is a difference between Nathuram Godse killing Mahatma Gandhi and the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh) killing him,” a bench headed by justice Dipak Misra said, referring to the BJP’s ideological parent. “You must face trial; the case must be decided on merit, whether what you spoke was for public good or not.”

The court made this observation on Gandhi’s petition seeking the quashing of proceedings against him in a Maharashtra court.

“Rahul Gandhi has said he will not seek an apology over what he said and will fight the case as he wants to present his facts along with historical proof and evidence to prove his point and help bring out the truth,” Congress spokesman Gaurav Gogoi said.

“He is a mature politician with intimate knowledge of historical facts. The Congress and Gandhi will defend these remarks at appropriate forum,” the party’s chief spokesman Randeep Surjewala said. Gandhi’s counsel Harin Raval also sought to justify the remarks: “They are part of government records and also a judgment delivered by the Bombay high court.”

But the bench responded, “We have held it maybe historically correct, but the factor the statement has to meet the test of public good .”

“We have made it clear in our earlier judgment (upholding the defamation law in May) that there is a difference between denouncing an individual and an entity. You have denounced an entity.”

“The Congress had consistently been trying to spread lies and baseless allegations about the RS S. Today’ s SC ruling has exposed the Congress,” said Manmnohan Vaidya, all-India prachar pramukh of the RSS.

RSS activist Rajesh Kunte had filed the complaint against Gandhi in a Maharashtra court in March 2014, alleging the Congress leader had told an election rally that “RSS people killed Gandhiji”. Gandhi challenged the complaint in the Supreme Court in May 2015.

Kunte’s lawyer MN Krishnamani said his client would withdraw the case if Gandhi expressed regret for his remarks.

Fixing the next hearing for July 27, the top court turned down the 46- year-old Congress leader’s request to defer the case for two weeks as senior advocate Kapil Sibal was unavailable. “Let someone else argue the matter,” it said.

When told Gandhi had made there marks against the RS S many times, the bench asked Raval if this was true. The counsel didn’t respond, prompting the court to comment ,“Possibly them an( Rahul) has said it.”

“Freedom is not crippled or cut. Every day, a writer, a politician will speak something. The purpose of law is not to turn people into litigants,” the court observed, pointing out that the law couldn’t be misused even thought the court had up held the criminal is at ion of defamatory speech.

Gandhi was one of the petitioners who had challenged the criminal defamation law.

When Raval tried to read out portions of the allegedly defamatory speech, the court cut him short: “Please, for god’s sake, no speeches .”

But reading out from the speech itself, the bench inferred that Gandhi had in fact attacked the RSS, remarking, “Inkey log (their people’s)… what does it mean?”