Will not allow you to speak anything about our freedom fighters: SC to Rahul Gandhi on Veer Savarkar row

In November 2022, Rahul Gandhi, during his Bharat Jodo Yatra, made defamatory comments on Savarkar at a rally in Maharashtra's Akola. A bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Manmohan asked Rahul Gandhi to refrain from making 'irresponsible statements' as it told him not to speak anything against freedom fighters

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday castigated Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi over his alleged derogatory remarks on freedom fighter Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.

In November 2022, Rahul Gandhi, during his Bharat Jodo Yatra, made defamatory comments on Savarkar at a rally in Maharashtra’s Akola. A bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Manmohan asked Rahul Gandhi to refrain from making ‘irresponsible statements’ as it told him not to speak anything against freedom fighters.

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“Mahatma Gandhi also used ‘your faithful servant’ while addressing the Viceroy? Someone does not become a servant like this. Next time, somebody will say Mahatma Gandhi was the servant of the British,” it remarked.

The Justice Datta-led Bench cautioned that if the Congress leader made any such comments in the future, it would initiate “suo motu” action against him.

“Let’s be clear, any further statement and we will take suo moto! We will not allow you to speak anything about our freedom fighters. They have given us freedom, and this is how we treat them?” said the apex court as it dealt with Rahul Gandhi’s petition to quash a 2022 defamation case filed against him.

After senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, representing Rahul Gandhi, orally undertook that the Congress leader would refrain from making such comments in future, the Justice Datta-led Bench passed an interim order staying the order of the court below summoning him to face trial for the offences under Sections 153-A and 505 of the now-repealed Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Earlier, the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court had declined to exercise its inherent powers in favour of Rahul Gandhi, who had sought the quashing of the entire legal proceedings. A single-judge Bench of Justice Subhash Vidyarthi, in its order passed on April 4, said that Rahul Gandhi had the statutory remedy of filing a revision against the lower court order.

“As the petitioner has got a statutory remedy of filing a revision under Section 397/399 CrPC, this court does not find it a fit case warranting exercise of its inherent powers under Section 482 CrPC,” the Allahabad HC said.

Under the IPC, 1860, Section 153-A addressed the offence of “promoting enmity between different groups based on religion, race, caste, etc.”, and Section 505 dealt with ‘statements conducing to public mischief”.

In January this year, the Supreme Court, in an interim order, had directed the halting of trial court proceedings in a defamation case filed by a BJP worker against Rahul Gandhi over the latter’s alleged defamatory remarks against Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

During one of his public speeches in Jharkhand’s Chaibasa before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Rahul Gandhi had called Shah a “murder accused”.

In August 2023, the Supreme Court stayed the conviction of Rahul Gandhi in the ‘Modi surname’ defamation case, which had cost him his then Lok Sabha membership, saying that no reasons were given by the trial judge for imposing the maximum punishment of two years in the case.

Following the apex court’s stay order, the Lok Sabha Secretariat restored his membership in Parliament on August 7, 2023. Rahul Gandhi was disqualified as an MP in March 2023 after a Surat court convicted him and sentenced him to two years in prison for his “How come all thieves have Modi as the common surname” remark made during an election rally in Karnataka in April 2019.

His remark was interpreted as an attempt to draw an implicit connection between Prime Minister Modi and fugitive businessmen Nirav Modi and Lalit Modi.