New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday pulled up Congress MP Rahul Gandhi over his claims that China had grabbed the Indian territory. The top court questioned Gandhi about how he knew that the Chinese Army had taken control of 2000 km of Indian land.
" If you are a true Indian, you won't say all of this," the Supreme Court said. However, the top court stayed defamation case against the Congress MP. A bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Augustine George Masih issued notice to the Uttar Pradesh government and the complainant in the case.
Senior Advocate Dr Abhishek Manu Singhvi represented Gandhi in the top court. "If he can't say these things which are published in the Press, he can't be a leader of opposition," Singhvi said as quoted by Live Law.
"You are Leader of Opposition. Say things in Parliament, why do you have say it on social media? "How do you get to know that 2000 sq km land was occupied by Chinese, if you are true Indian, you wouldn't say such a thing," the bench observed, while replying to Singhvi's remark.
Notably, the Congress MP allegedly made these remarks in Arunachal Pradesh during his Bharat Jodo Yatra in 2022.
The Allahabad High Court on May 29 had dismissed Gandhi's plea.
Gandhi had challenged the summoning order and the complaint arguing that it was motivated and lodged in mala fide manner. A plea was filed by former Border Roads Organisation (BRO) Director Udai Shanker Srivastava. In the plea, Srivastava alleged that during the December 2022 Yatra, Gandhi made several derogatory remarks about the Indian Army in context of the border standoff with China.
