The Supreme Court has granted a four-week extension for the stay on criminal defamation proceedings against Rahul Gandhi, a prominent Congress leader and the current Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha. This development is related to comments he made in 2022 concerning the Indian Army during the Bharat Jodo Yatra.
A bench comprising Justices MM Sundresh and Vipul M Pancholi issued this order following a request from Gandhi’s legal team. His lawyer sought additional time to submit a response to an affidavit filed by the Uttar Pradesh government.
The initial complaint was lodged by Uday Shankar Srivastava, a retired director of the Border Roads Organisation. He accused Gandhi of defaming the Indian Army and attempting to demoralize soldiers by making allegedly false and baseless claims. Specifically, the comments, made during a press interaction on December 9, 2022, pertained to a border clash in the Yangtse sector of Arunachal Pradesh.
Previously, on August 4, the Supreme Court had put a stay on the proceedings. This was in response to Gandhi’s appeal against an Allahabad High Court order from May 29, which had declined to quash a trial court’s summons in the defamation case.
The legal action originated from Gandhi’s remarks made in December 2022 during the Bharat Jodo Yatra. At that time, he had alleged that the Chinese Army had occupied 2,000 sq km of Indian territory and had physically assaulted Indian soldiers in Arunachal Pradesh.
During Monday’s hearing, counsel Amit Bhandari, representing senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, requested more time for Gandhi to file his response. The court has now adjourned the matter to the week commencing November 20, stating, “The stay on further proceedings is extended till the next date of hearing.”
The court is currently deliberating on a significant legal question: whether the trial court should have issued a summons to Gandhi given that Section 223 of the Bhartiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) mandates that an accused must be heard before a complaint is taken into cognizance.
Back on August 4, the Supreme Court had noted that the petitioner’s argument regarding a breach of Section 223 seemed prima facie correct. In that same hearing, the court had also expressed disapproval of Gandhi’s remarks, observing that a true Indian would not make such statements.
Senior advocate Gaurav Bhatia, representing the complainant, informed the court that another petition, concerning defamation proceedings initiated by former JNU professor Amita Singh against editors of The Wire news portal, has been consolidated with Gandhi’s case. This case was linked to Gandhi’s petition last month, around which time the court had commented that “time has come to decriminalise section 499 (defamation) of the Indian Penal Code.”
On September 22, the Supreme Court had stayed the trial proceedings against The Wire and its deputy editor Ajoy Ashirwad Mahaprastha. This followed a 2016 story that alleged the professor had submitted a dossier concerning a sex racket at JNU. Singh had filed a defamation complaint that same year, denying the existence of such a dossier, a fact corroborated by JNU itself. The Delhi High Court had refused to quash the summons issued to The Wire in January, prompting them to appeal to the Supreme Court.
On Monday, the Supreme Court extended the stay on the proceedings involving The Wire as well, while agreeing to consider whether the two petitions should remain linked.