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Supreme Court extends stay on Lucknow court proceedings against Rahul Gandhi by 4 weeks
A bench of justices MM Sundresh and Vipul M Pancholi passed the order on a request by Gandhi’s lawyer, who sought time to file his response
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday extended the stay on the criminal defamation proceedings against Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi by four more weeks in a case relating to his 2022 comments on the Indian Army during the Bharat Jodo Yatra.
A bench of justices MM Sundresh and Vipul M Pancholi passed the order on a request by Gandhi’s lawyer, who sought time to file his response to an affidavit by the Uttar Pradesh government.
The complaint, filed by Uday Shankar Srivastava, a retired director of the Border Roads Organisation, accused Gandhi of defaming the Indian Army and attempting to demoralise soldiers through “false and baseless” claims. The statement in question, made during a press interaction on December 9, 2022, referred to the border clash in Arunachal Pradesh’s Yangtse sector.
On August 4, the top court stayed the proceedings on Gandhi’s appeal against a May 29 Allahabad High Court order that refused to quash a trial court’s summons in a defamation case.
The proceedings arose from Gandhi’s December 2022 comment during the Bharat Jodo Yatra, where he alleged the Chinese Army “captured 2,000 sq km of Indian territory,” and “thrashed our jawans in Arunachal Pradesh.”
On Monday, lawyer Amit Bhandari requested on behalf of senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi that the court give them more time to file Gandhi’s response. The court adjourned the case to the week commencing November 20. “The stay on further proceedings is extended till the next date of hearing,” the bench said
The court is considering a legal question whether the trial court should have summoned Gandhi when Section 223 of the Bhartiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) requires an accused to be heard before taking cognisance of the complaint.
On August 4, the top court indicated that the petitioner’s contention about the breach of Section 223 appears to be prima facie correct. In the same hearing, the court had also pulled up Gandhi for his comments, observing that a true Indian would not have make such remarks.
Senior advocate Gaurav Bhatia, appearing for the complainant, told the court that another petition has been tagged with this matter relating to defamation proceedings initiated by former Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) professor Amita Singh against the editors of The Wire news portal. The case was tagged to Gandhi’s petition last month when the court had observed that “time has come to decriminalise section 499 (defamation) of the Indian Penal Code.”
On September 22, the top court stayed the trial proceedings against The Wire and its deputy editor Ajoy Ashirwad Mahaprastha for publishing a story in 2016, which alleged that the professor had submitted a dossier on sex racket in JNU. Singh had filed a defamation complaint the same year, denying any such dossier, a fact that even JNU testified. The Delhi high court on May 7 refused to quash the summons issued against the Wire in January following which the latter approached the top court.
On Monday, the top court extended the stay on this proceeding as well, while agreeing to examine the claim if the two petitions need to be de-tagged.
