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Rahul Gandhi may have to face defamation suit, hints Indian Supreme Court

Xinhua, July 19, 2016 Adjust font size:

India's Supreme Court Tuesday refused to cancel a defamation suit against Nehru-Gandhi scion Rahul Gandhi and indicated that he may have to face a trial in the case.

The 45-year-old second-in-command of the country's main opposition Congress party has been sued by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's ideological mentor organisation Rashtriya Swamsewak Sangh (RSS)for blaming the Hindu group in 2014 for the assassination of India's pre-independence icon Mahatma Gandhi.

"You can't make collective denunciations. We have upheld the defamation law. The purpose of the law is to obey law so that there is harmony rather than anarchy," the top court made it clear to Gandhi's lawyer, fixing the next date of hearing on July 27.

The judges also quashed Gandhi's argument that the defamation law comes in between Constitutional right to freedom of speech. "Freedom is not crippled or cut. Everyday a writer, politician will speak something. The purpose of the law is not to turn people into litigants," the court said.

Gandhi had moved the court to quash the case against him, after declining to it's suggestion to apologize to the RSS in order to put an end to the suit. Endit