The apex court said that they have applied their mind and Rahul Gandhi will have to face the trial in the case. India’s top court on Tuesday, July 19, 2016, has ordered a scion of India’s Nehru-Gandhi family to express regret or face defamation charges for blaming the country’s top Hindu nationalist organization for the 1948 assassination of independence leader Mohandas Gandhi.
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“We will examine whether what the petitioner (Rahul) said comes within the ambit of defamation”, the court reportedly said. Adjourning the matter till July 27, the Supreme Court asked the Congress vice president to detail his arguments.
“At this point, Congress party stands with Rahul Gandhi and we are confident that we will be able to present a strong case, present all the facts and historical evidence that we are supposed to make”, he added.
Gandhi had then approached the High Court seeking exemption from appearance and quashing of the complaint. “Even if there is historical evidence against it, one has to show the truthfulness or the public good in making such statement”, the SC bench said.
RSS’ Akhil Bharatiya Prachar Pramukh Manmohan Vaidya, however, welcomed the court’s remarks and said Gandhi has been repeatedly peddling a lie to defame the Sangh.
The bench, after going through the high court judgment, pointed out that it only said that Godse was an RSS worker.
But reading out from the speech itself, the bench inferred that Gandhi had in fact attacked the RSS, remarking, “Inkey log (their people’s)… what does it mean?”
Attempting to distance itself from Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse, the RSS yesterday said that the Congress vice-president must tender an apology otherwise he would have to frequently visit the Supreme Court. It asked the Gandhi dynast to either apologise or face trial. “They are our people, we can not forsake them”, she said.
Justice Misra said that “history is the greatest enemy of privacy. The objective of the law is not to turn people into litigants…We have upheld the defamation law to promote harmony rather than anarchy”. Rahul had urged the apex court to reject the defamation case filed against him by the RSS in March.
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The bench said that “freedom is not crippled or curbed”.
