Charges against Rahul: SC reserves order on petitioner

The Supreme Court on Monday reserved its verdict on the petition filed by a former Samajwadi Party MLA challenging an Allahabad High Court order which imposed Rs 50 lakh cost and directed a CBI probe against him for raising rape charges against Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi and others.

A bench of Justices B S Chauhan and Swatanter Kumar concluded hearing on the special leave petition filed by Kishore Samrite after his advocate Kamini Jaiswal, appearing for him, wrapped up her rejoinder arguments.

She contended that the high court’s division bench passed the order on April 7, imposing cost and directing probe against Samrite without jurisdiction as the habeas corpus petition filed by him was pending before a single judge.

She reiterated that the court order was passed in “undue haste”, rejecting the arguments of senior advocate P P Rao, appearing for Gandhi, that the petitioner made “scandalous remarks” against the high court bench. “The matter was not listed; it was just mentioned and the order was passed without notice to petitioner. Is this not undue haste,” she asked.
“There was no direct accusation to one single person. But the name of respondent six (Gandhi) was highlighted in bold letters in the certified copy of the order. Why so? I thought everyone was equal in the country. There were six others,” Jaiswal said.

She also claimed the girl and the parents produced by the police before the high court were different from those named by Samrite in his petition.

She submitted that the CBI registered the FIR against the petitioner on April 11 invoking serious charges under the penal provisions while in normal courses, the probe agency first lodged the preliminary enquiry before converting it into regular case.