Rahul Gandhi contempt case closed: Supreme Court accepts apology, but asks him to be more careful

The Supreme Court on Thursday closed the contempt proceedings against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over his 'chowkidar chor hai'. Rahul Gandhi faced contempt charges for wrongly attributing the 'chowkidar chow hai' remark to the Supreme Court.

Gandhi had later apologised to the court. On Thusday, the Supreme Court accepted Rahul Gandhi's "unconditional apology" and closed the contempt proceedings against him.

At the same time, the Supreme Court pulled up Rahul Gandhi saying that somebody in his position should be more careful. "Mr Rahul Gandhi needs to be careful in future...," a Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and Justices SK Kaul and KM Joseph said.

The Supreme Court pronounced its verdict on the criminal contempt plea filed against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi by BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi for wrongly attributing to the SC his "chowkidar chor hai" remark in Rafale case against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

WHAT IS THE CASE

Rahul Gandhi had made the remarks on April 10, the day the Supreme Court had dismissed the Centre's preliminary objections over admissibility of certain documents for supporting the review petitions against the December 14 last year verdict in the Rafale case.

While commenting on the Supreme Court's decision, Rahul Gandhi -- then the Congress president -- ended up attributing the 'chowkidar chor hai' remark to the court.

The remark was one used by the Congress leader to target PM Narendra Modi over the Rafale deal.

Rahul Gandhi later tendered an unconditional apology to the Supreme Court for wrongly attributing the remarks relating to the Prime Minister to the apex court.

WHAT FOLLOWED

Senior advocate AM Singhvi, appearing for Gandhi, had told the bench, that the Congress leader expressed regret over the wrongful attribution to the apex court.

Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Lekhi, had submitted that the apology tendered by Gandhi should be rejected and action must be taken against him as per the law.

Rohatgi also argued that the court should ask Gandhi to make an apology to the public for his remarks.

RAHUL'S UNCONDITIONAL APOLOGY

Rahul Gandhi had on May 8 tendered unconditional apology in the SC for wrongfully attributing to it his "chowkidar chor hai" remark in the Rafale verdict and said he holds the top court in the "highest esteem and respect" and any attributions to it were "entirely unintentional, non-wilful and inadvertent".

The three-page affidavit was filed by the then Congress president after he had drawn flak from the SC on April 30 over his earlier affidavit in which he had not directly admitted his mistake for incorrectly attributing the allegedly contemptuous remark to the top court.

Lekhi filed the contempt plea against Gandhi for the "chowkidar chor hai" remarks against Modi, which the SC had said were incorrectly attributed to it.

The apex court on April 15 had given a categorical clarification that in its Rafale verdict there was no occasion for it to make a mention of the contemptuous observation that "chowkidar Narendra Modi chor hain" as has been attributed to it by Rahul Gandhi.

Gandhi, in his explanation filed in the court earlier, had said that his statement was made in the "heat of political campaigning" and there was not the "slightest intention to insinuate" anything regarding the Supreme Court proceedings in any manner.

He had said that his April 10 statement was made in purely political context to counter the "misinformation campaign" being led by senior BJP functionaries as well as the government that the apex court verdict of December 14 last year was a "clean chit" to the Centre regarding all the aspects of the Rafale deal.