Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, has moved the Madhya Pradesh High Court expressing regret over his 2018 remarks in which he allegedly linked Kartikey Singh, son of Union Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, to the Panama Papers leak scandal. The application, filed through his counsel on Wednesday, states that the statement in question was not related to Kartikey Singh and seeks relief from the defamation proceedings pending against him.
The case originates from a criminal defamation complaint filed by Kartikey Singh in a special court in Bhopal dealing with cases against MPs and MLAs. Rahul Gandhi while speaking at an election rally at Jhabua in 2018 had targeted Shivraj Singh Chouhan, saying that “rampant corruption” had been taken place in the state during Chauhan’s rule. He also claimed that the name of Chauhan’s son Kartikey Chauhan had figured in the Panama Papers but no action was taken against him.
Rahul Gandhi had said, “The name of former Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif appears in Panama Papers. In a country like Pakistan, he is jailed. Here, the name of the son of a CM figures in Panama Papers but no action is taken.”
Following this, Rahul Gandhi had brazened out his allegations by saying that he got ‘confused’ and wrongly named Kartikey in Panama Paper Leaks while in reality, Shivraj Singh Chouhan is ‘involved in Vyapam and e-tender scams’.
In the complaint, it was alleged that Rahul Gandhi caused damage to the reputation of Kartikey by falsely linking him to Panama papers case. Following the complaint, the trial court had issued summons directing Rahul Gandhi to appear personally before it.
In response, Rahul Gandhi approached the Jabalpur bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court seeking to quash the summons and the defamation case. Justice Pramod Kumar Agarwal is hearing the petition. On Wednesday, when the matter came up, the petitioner’s side produced the records of the lower court as directed earlier. Advocate Sankalp Kochhar appeared on behalf of the complainant, Kartikey Singh.
In the fresh application submitted to the High Court, Rahul Gandhi has conveyed his regret over the remark and clarified that it was not intended to refer to Kartikey Singh.
The High Court is expected to take up the petition for further hearing on Thursday.
