A petition was filed against the statement made against the Indian Army during the Bharat Jodo Yatra in 2022. After that, a Lucknow court had issued a summons to him. The Allahabad High Court has rejected the petition filed by the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, against that order. This is being considered a big setback for Rahul Gandhi.
Justice Subhash Vidyarthi dismissed the petition on merits. Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Alok Verma had directed him to appear for the hearing on March 24 in the defamation case filed against Gandhi. The complaint was filed by advocate Vivek Tiwari on behalf of Uday Shankar Srivastava, former director of the Border Roads Organization, who holds the rank of Colonel in the Army. Tiwari alleged that Gandhi's statement on December 16, 2022, regarding the clash between Indian and Chinese troops on December 9, 2022, was insulting and defamatory towards the Indian military forces.
Rahul Gandhi had criticised the government for the remark that "Chinese soldiers are killing Indian Army personnel in Arunachal Pradesh". Several petitions have been filed against Gandhi by political rivals and others in various courts across the country. In January this year, the Supreme Court had stayed the criminal defamation proceedings filed against Gandhi for calling Union Home Minister and former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah a murderer.
The case was initiated after BJP leader Naveen Jha filed a complaint against Gandhi. Gandhi was accused of giving a speech on March 18, 2018 criticising the BJP and accusing Shah of murder. Recently, the Supreme Court had reprimanded Gandhi for his statement that Hindutva ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar was a British collaborator who received a pension from the British.
A bench of Justices Dipankar Dutta and Manmohan said that Gandhi's statements against freedom fighters were irresponsible and the court would take action on its own if he made similar statements. However, the bench had stayed the summons issued to him by the magistrate court in connection with his statements in a criminal case filed against him by a lawyer for his controversial statements.
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