A Supreme Court bench led by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi on Monday issued a notice to Congress President Rahul Gandhi and sought an explanation from him for his comments after the Supreme Court verdict on Rafale, reports Live Law.
Rahul Gandhi had distorted the SC order while talking to the media, and said that Supreme Court has accepted that there is some form of corruption in Rafale deal and that “chowkidaar ne chori karwayi hai”. The Supreme Court observed that it had on “no occasion” made any comments as attributed by Gandhi and that the judgment was solely on the legal question of admissibility of documents produced by review petitioners. The top court has asked Rahul Gandhi to reply by April 22.
The Supreme Court was hearing a contempt petition against Congress chief Rahul Gandhi filed by BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi over his ‘Chowkidar chor hai’ remarks against PM Modi after the Supreme Court order on Rafale.
Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for BJP leader Meenakshi Lekhi, submitted before the apex court that Congress president had made a remark that the “Supreme Court has said, chowkidaar chor hai” in the verdict in Rafale review delivered on April 10.
The BJP had slammed the Congress President after he claimed that the top court has made it “clear” that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had “committed a theft”. Rahul Gandhi made the comments referring to the SC nod on the admissibility of “leaked documents” in the Rafale case.
Last Wednesday the apex court allowed the admissibility of three documents as evidence in re-examining the review petitions concerning the Rafale deal. Court had dismissed the union government’s objections on the maintainability of the documents. The documents related to the Rafale deal are from the defence ministry, and the government says that they were illegally obtained by the petitioners and the newspapers that had published them. The Supreme Court had earlier given a clean chit to PM Modi in the Rafale deal, and it is hearing the review petitions on the issue.
The Supreme Court was hearing five Rafale review petitions, mainly on the issues of the admissibility of “stolen” Rafale documents as evidence and the claim of privilege raised on them by the government.