NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday set aside a Lucknow trial court’s order summoning leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi in a criminal defamation case over his remarks about VD Savarkar.A bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Sheel Nagu held that the required sanction had not been obtained in the matter.“Additional Solicitor General and advocate for complainant, in the affidavit filed by UP, submits there is no disclosure of sanction. In such view of the matter, the complaint and orders passed by magistrate stands quashed,” the bench said.The defamation case stems from Rahul Gandhi’s remarks about Savarkar during a rally in Maharashtra’s Akola district on November 17, 2022, held as part of his Bharat Jodo Yatra.On April 4, 2025, the Lucknow bench of the high court said Rahul Gandhi could file a revision petition before the sessions court, holding that its intervention was not required at that stage.The leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha had challenged the subordinate court’s order summoning him while contesting the ongoing proceedings in the case.
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Satyaki Savarkar, VD Savarkar’s grandnephew, had filed a complaint against Rahul, alleging that during a speech in London in March 2023, the Congress leader claimed that V D Savarkar had written in a book about an incident in which he and five to six friends beat up a Muslim man and that he felt happy about it.Satyaki Savarkar claimed that no such incident took place and that VD Savarkar had never written about any such episode. He sought Rahul Gandhi’s conviction under Section 500 of the IPC and compensation under Section 357 of the CrPC.The court had already granted bail to Rahul Gandhi in the case.
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