Lucknow: The Allahabad High Court on Thursday dismissed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s petition challenging a trial court’s summons and complaint against him over alleged derogatory remarks about the Indian Army during his Bharat Jodo Yatra.
A Lucknow bench of Justice Subhash Vidyarthi passed the order and said it would release the detailed order by Monday.
Earlier, opposing the plea of Gandhi, a battery of state lawyers including additional advocate general VK Shahi, government advocate VK Singh and additional government advocate Anurag Verma stressed that the petition was not maintainable in the high court because the petitioner had alternative remedy to challenge the summoning order before the sessions court.
They also submitted that from bare perusal of the complaint and the statement of witnesses, prima facie offence was made out against him.
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Gandhi had challenged the summoning order and the complaint arguing that it was motivated and lodged in mala fide manner.
In his plea filed in a court here, complainant Udai Shanker Srivastava alleged that during the December 2022 Yatra, Gandhi made several derogatory remarks about the Indian Army in context of the conflict with Chinese soldiers.
The lower court then summoned Gandhi as an accused for facing trial.
Gandhi’s advocate Pranshu Agarwal had argued that the allegations appeared to be fabricated just by reading the complaint.
It was also argued that Gandhi is not a resident of Lucknow, so before summoning him on this complaint, the lower court should have investigated the veracity of the allegations and he should have been summoned only if the allegations were prima-facie found to be fit for trial.
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