Know Your Freedom Fighter Angry SC Tells Rahul Gandhi

The Supreme Court on Friday delivered an impromptu lesson on India’s Freedom Fighters to Rahul Gandhi during an appeal hearing. The case pertains to allegedly defamatory remarks made by Gandhi against Vinayak Damodar Savarkar at a press conference in 2023. The court said “This is not how you treat freedom fighters like this when you don’t know anything about the history of India.”

The court made these remarks while granting a stay to Rahul Gandhi against a lower court that had summoned him in a defamation case involving remarks made by him the freedom fighter. The Allahabad High Court, which heard the appeal earlier this month, had refused to interfere in the matter and that led to the appeal that was heard today by the Supreme Court.

The case was heard by a bench of Justice Dipankar Dutta and Justice Manmohan. Justice Dutta came down heavily on Gandhi and said, “He is a political leader of a political party. Why should you make such a statement? Don’t do this…why do you make such statements?”

The case against Gandhi was the result of his allegedly defamatory comments on Savarkar in a press conference in Maharashtra in 2022. Gandhi has said that Svarkar was a “servant of the British” and their pensioner. This, in turn, led to a case against Gandhi by a lawyer Nirpendra Pandey in UP. That case was dismissed initially in 2023 but was revived and is now being heard in a court in Lucknow.

Justice Dutta went on to say, “Does your client (Rahul Gandhi) know that even Mahatma Gandhi used the word “your faithful servant?” He added that, “Even I have seen Chief Justices of our High Courts use such expressions. By that logic, will you say Mahatma Gandhi was a servant of the British? You have a strong case on law, and you will get a stay?”

The hearing concluded and Justice Dutta said that any further irresponsible statements from Gandhi would be taken up suo motu by the court.

Congressfreedom fighterspoliticsRahul GandhiSupreme Court of IndiaVinayak Damodar Savarkar