SC dismisses rape rap against Rahul, fines complainant Rs 10 lakh

A petition filed against Rahul Gandhi, accusing him of having illegally confined a girl in 2006, was on Thursday dismissed as without substance by the Supreme Court which imposed a heavy cost of Rs 10 lakh on the petitioner.

Of the cost, Rs 5 lakh would go to Gandhi and the remaining will go to the girl and her family, the reputation of both of whom has been damaged by the “frivolous” petition.

Objecting to the way in which the Allahabad High Court had dismissed the case against Rahul, a bench of justices B S Chauhan and Swatanter Kumar went into all the evidence and came to the conclusion that the petition was based on falsehood and driven by malice and political vendetta.

The Bench passed the order on a petition filed by ex-Samajwadi Party MLA Kishore Samrite challenging an order of the high court dismissing his plea against Gandhi without giving him a proper hearing and going into the merit of his petition. The high court had imposed costs of Rs 50 lakh on him for filing the petition. Agreeing with Samrite’s contention that he was not given a hearing by the high court, the Supreme Court felt the HC order was “not in consonance with the accepted canons of judicial administrative propriety”.

However, the apex court came to the conclusion that there was no merit in Samrite’s allegation.

Cong welcomes apex court decision

New Delhi, DHNS: The Congress on Thursday hailed the Supreme Court order, dismissing a petition against party general secretary Rahul Gandhi in an alleged rape case.

The party also attacked activist Arvind Kejriwal and other political parties  indirectly, cautioning them against making “baseless allegations” for political gains.

Citing the apex court order, Congress media department chairperson Janardan Dwivedi said that the “petitioner has abuseda the process of the court in order to wrongly and deliberately malign and damage the public image of Gandhi”. Dwivedi went on to say that political parties should desist from using “lies and immorality” to acquire power and stressed that the way “cheap and baseless allegations” are being hurled at in political arena is dangerous for democracy.