After Bharatiya Janata Party MP Meenakshi Lekhi filed a plea objecting to Rahul Gandhi’s “Chowkidar Chor Hai” statement, in reference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress Chief on Monday April 22, filed his response in the contempt case.
Rahul Gandhi had said his statement to media that the Supreme Court had “agreed” that PM Modi had committed corruption in the Rafale deal was a political diatribe against opponents who had gone to town citing a clean chit from the court and it was in continuance of his constant campaign slogan ‘Chowkidar chor hai’.
However, after the matter came up before a Bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Guptaand Sanjiv Khanna on April 15, the Court had asked Gandhi to explain his statement, while observing,
“The Court had no such occasion to make any such observation.”
In an affidavit submitted today, Rahul Gandhi said his brief statement, made amidst hectic political campaigning, was not intended to insinuate anything that has not been said by the Court.
Here’s what Rahul Gandhi really said in his affidavit to the Supreme Court
“The said statements were made by the Respondent in a Hindi in a rhetorical flourish in the heat of the moment. It was during a political campaign without a readable copy of the Supreme Court order being available on its website and, therefore, without the answering Respondent having seen or read the order and relying upon electronic and social media reportage and the version of workers and activists surrounding the Respondent.”
Gandhi further said that ” He did not have the lightest or remotest intention, desire or even thought process, to bring the court into the political arena or bring it into disrepute or attribute to it deliberately or wilfully that which the court had not said or meant.”
Congress President in his affidavit attacks the Prime Minister Narendra Modi by saying
“There was no attempt to wilfully misrepresent the order of this Hon’ble Court. The question of willfully intending to prejudice the public against Sh. narendra Modi as is strangely suggested by the Petitioner in Para 14 of the Contempt Petition does not arise in view of the fact that it is the firm belief of the answering Respondent that Sh. Narendra Modi is involved in misdemeanours in the Rafale deal and this has been the stand of several persons in political discourse over the last year”
