Read Time: 05 minutes

Synopsis

The Bombay High Court, while allowing the petition filed by Congress Leader Rahul Gandhi, observed that Rahul Gandhi has a legitimate right to a speedy trial under Article 21 of the Constitution.

“It can thus be seen that the respondent No.2 is keeping no stone un-turned to thwart the legitimate right of the petitioner to get the complaint decided on merits as expeditiously as possible in view of Article 21 of the Constitution of India which provides speedy trial. It is difficult to abstruse the conduct of the respondent No.2. Free and fair trial is a sine qua non of Article 21 of the Constitution of India. It is trite law that justice should not only be done but it should be seen to have been done,” the order reads.

A single-judge bench of Justice P.K. Chavan made the observation in a case pertaining to remarks made by Congress Leader Rahul Gandhi against the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

Rajesh Kunte had lodged a defamation complaint against Gandhi, alleging that he had stated in a speech that the RSS was accountable for the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.

Gandhi filed a petition challenging the magistrate court's order allowing an RSS worker to annex a transcript in the defamation case. This transcript was earlier part of Gandhi's writ petition in the high court

Gandhi has approached the high court against the order of the Thane court allowing the RSS worker to exhibit documents that were a part of Gandhi's petition in 2014.

In 2021, the RSS worker challenged the trial court's decision rejecting his plea to annex specific documents from Gandhi's 2014 petition.

The high court had clarified that Gandhi could not be compelled to acknowledge or refute the inclusion of such annexures.

Gandhi in his plea contended that the order and the exhibition of the entire writ petition is wholly contrary to settled principles of evidence and criminal jurisprudence.

The plea added that producing the entire copy of the said writ petition with annexures is nothing but a veiled attempt by the RSS worker to get the transcripts of the alleged speech admitted instead of proving the speech by its own documents.

The high court noted that the annexures which were part of the writ petition were only for limited purposes.

“Obviously, the annexures which were annexed with the Writ Petition were only for a limited purpose of seeking quashing of the case and can by no stretch of imagination be construed as an admission on behalf of the petitioner in respect of the contents therein,” the order reads.

Case title: Rahul Gandhi vs State of Maharashtra & Anr