Lucknow Court grants bail to Rahul Gandhi in Army Defamation Case

A local court in Lucknow on Tuesday granted bail to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in a case related to his alleged derogatory remarks about the Indian Army during the 2022 Bharat Jodo Yatra.

The matter came up before the MP/MLA court after the Allahabad High Court’s Lucknow Bench, on May 29, 2025, dismissed Gandhi’s petition challenging both the maintainability of the case and the summons issued by the court below.

Today, appearing before Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Alok Verma, Gandhi was granted bail following a brief hearing.

A complaint was filed by a retired officer of the Border Roads Organization (BRO), Uday Shankar Shrivastav, who stated that Gandhi’s comment, made during a press interaction on December 16, 2022, during the Bharat Jodo Yatra, was defamatory to the armed forces and hurtful to his own morale as a former defense personnel.

Gandhi had said, "Chinese troops are thrashing Indian soldiers in Arunachal Pradesh".

The Allahabad High Court, in its order, had said, "no doubt, Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India guarantees freedom of speech and expression, this freedom is subject to the reasonable restrictions and it does not include the freedom to make statements which are defamatory to any person or defamatory to the Indian Army".

The bench of Justice Subhash Vidyarthi had also underscored the context of Gandhi’s remarks. As they were made in a press briefing, court had held, that it was evident that the intention was for them to be widely reported and disseminated. The applicant had a clear intention and message to the persons present that his statement be published in newspapers and magazines, the court had noted.

Advocate Pranshu Agarwal appeared for Gandhi.