Does possessing Gandhi's biography makes you Gandhian?, asks SC

Can a person possessing a book on Mahatma Gandhi be called a Gandhian,? was how the Supreme Court took a dig at Chhattisgarh government for dubbing rights activist Binayak Sen as a hard core Naxalite merely for possessing pamphlets of banned CPI Maoist.

Can a person possessing a book on Mahatma Gandhi be called a Gandhian,? was how the Supreme Court took a dig at Chhattisgarh government for dubbing rights activist Binayak Sen as a hard core Naxalite merely for possessing pamphlets of banned CPI Maoist.

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"Is it like that if someone has got the autobiography of Gandhi at his home he will be called a Gandhian? Is that your logic that having documents and pamphlets on Maoist and Naxalites at his (Sen's) house (makes him an outlaw)"? a bench comprising justices HS Bedi and CK Prasad said.

The remarks were made by the Bench when senior advocate UU Lalit, appearing for Chhattisgarh government, was referring to the material and answering a volley of questions to butress that Sen has deep links with Naxalites and was spreading the base of CPI-Maoist in the country.

He had stated that several documents and pamphlets relating to the banned outfit were recovered from his house and he was visiting jails and exchanging such documents with other Maoists lodged there.