The Supreme Court stepped in to throw out a criminal complaint and trial court summons targeting Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over remarks he made about Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. A bench made up of Justices Dipankar Datta and Sheel Nagu wiped out the ongoing proceedings in Uttar Pradesh after spotting a major procedural flaw: the case never got the mandatory government nod required to move forward in the first place.
When the state’s Additional Solicitor General admitted in court that no official sanction was ever given under Section 196 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the judges made it clear that the local magistrate had no legal ground to take up the matter at all. Supreme Court Quashes Defamation Case Against Rahul Gandhi Over Savarkar Remarks.
The whole dispute trace back to a private case filed by a Lucknow-based lawyer who accused the Leader of Opposition of stoking social discord and disparaging the right-wing icon during a Bharat Jodo Yatra press briefing in Maharashtra back in late 2022. Gandhi took the fight up to the top court after the Allahabad High Court turned down his plea to drop the summons earlier.
Striking down the lower court order brings a clean end to a long-drawn legal fight, handing the senior politician major relief while driving home the point that procedural rules on speech-related complaints cannot just be bypassed.