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Supreme Court halts Mumbai defamation trial against Rahul Gandhi over remarks on Modi

A BJP worker says calling the Prime Minister a 'Commander-in-Thief' defamed party members. The Bombay High Court had refused to quash the case in September.

From the editorial desk · New DelhiPublished
Supreme Court of India building and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi (file photos)
Supreme Court of India building and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi (file photos)Photos: Pinakpani / Wikimedia Commons; Original: Indian National Congress. / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 and CC BY-SA 3.0

Key points

  1. The Supreme Court stayed further proceedings in the trial court and issued notice on Rahul Gandhi's appeal.
  2. The complaint is over Gandhi's alleged remarks calling Narendra Modi "Commander-in-Thief" and "Choro Ke Sardar".
  3. The Bombay High Court had held on 8 September that the BJP is an identifiable body that can be defamed.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed the criminal defamation trial against Lok Sabha Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi over remarks he allegedly made about Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and asked the Maharashtra government and the complainant to respond to his appeal.

A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Aparesh Kumar Singh issued notice, returnable in four weeks, on Gandhi’s challenge to a Bombay High Court ruling that refused to quash the case. “In the meantime, further proceedings before the trial court shall remain stayed,” the bench ordered. Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi appeared for Gandhi.

The complaint

The case was filed by Mahesh Shrishrimal, who says he has been an active BJP worker for two decades. He objects to Gandhi allegedly calling Modi “Choro Ke Sardar” and “Commander-in-Thief” during a 2018 rally in Rajasthan, and argues that the remarks painted every BJP member as a thief and lowered the party’s standing.

A magistrate’s court in Girgaon, Mumbai, summoned Gandhi in August 2019. He went to the High Court, arguing that he never named the BJP or any party, that no identifiable group was targeted, and that the complainant therefore had no standing to sue.

What the High Court said

On 8 September, the High Court disagreed. It held that the BJP, as a registered national party, is an identifiable body, and that the remark could not at this stage be read as aimed only at the party’s top leaders. Whether it hurt ordinary members was a question for the trial, the court said. Maharashtra’s Advocate General had argued that the case should not be thrown out at the threshold.

The appeal now raises a question that matters well beyond this case: whether a party worker can bring a criminal defamation complaint when neither the party nor its members are named in the words complained of.

The Mumbai trial will stay frozen until the Supreme Court hears the appeal.