On Monday, the Supreme Court gave the criminal defamation proceedings against Rahul Gandhi, the Congress leader and Lok Sabha Leader of the Opposition, a four-week stay extension. The case is based on some comments made by Gandhi in 2022 in his Bharat Jodo Yatra, in the context of a border conflict in the Yangtze sector of Arunachal Pradesh.
The order was issued by a bench of the Justices MM Sundesh and Vipul M. Pancholi following a request by the counsel of Gandhi to allow a longer period to file a response to an affidavit submitted by the government of Uttar Pradesh. The case was filed by Uday Shankar Srivastava, who retired as a director of the Border Roads Organisation, alleging that Gandhi defamed the Indian Army and tried to demoralise the soldiers by making false and unfounded assertions. The statements of Gandhi were based on a press encounter on December 9, 2022, and they alleged that the Chinese Army seized 2,000 sq km of Indian land and beat our jawans in Arunachal Pradesh.
Previously, on August 4, the Supreme Court had put on hold the case against a May 29 order of the Allahabad High Court that had denied a challenge to the summons issued by the trial court in the libel suit. On Monday, a lawyer by the name Amit Bhandari, who represents senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, asked to be given more time to submit the reply of Gandhi. Following the request, the court adjourned the case to the week beginning November 20, with the bench indicating the stay on further proceedings, which continued till the next date of hearing.
There is also a legal issue in this case on whether the trial court could have granted a summons to Gandhi without granting him a chance to be heard in accordance with Section 223 of the Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS). The matter the Supreme Court will discuss includes whether the procedural protections in the BNSS have been observed properly.
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