New Delhi, Oct 18: The Supreme Court Thursday gave a clean chit to Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi, saying that the 2006 allegation of gangrape against him and his friends was fake and ordered Rs.5 lakh compensation for damage to his reputation.
An apex court bench of Justice BS Chauhan and Justice Swatanter Kumar held that the allegation seemed to be a case of “political rivalry”, and was “without substance and not even an iota of evidence” was there to support it.
“It is a matter of regret that the process of the court has been abused by unscrupulous litigants just to attain publicity and adversely affect the reputation of another politician (Rahul Gandhi)," the apex court said.
The allegation had "damaged the public image of Rahul Gandhi", the court said.
The court imposed a cost of Rs.5 lakh on petitioner and former Samajwadi Party legislator from Madhya Pradesh Kishore Samrite. The money would go to Gandhi as compensation for damage to his reputation.
The petition was "based upon falsehood, was abuse of the process of the court and was driven by malice and political vendetta. Thus, while dismissing this petition, we impose exemplary cost of Rs.5 lakh upon the next friend (Samrite), cost being payable to respondent No. 6 (Rahul Gandhi)."
Gandhi's party hailed the verdict. Congress media department chairman Janardan Dwivedi said "baseless, cheap allegations" were being made which were "dangerous for democracy".
The apex court directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to continue its investigation against Samrite and others "responsible for the abuse of the process of court, making false statement in pleadings, filing false affidavits and committing such other offences as the investigating agency may find during investigation".
It sought a report from the probe agency in six months.
The apex court said Samrite, who had petitioned the Allahabad High Court in 2011, "did not approach the high court with clean hands". IANS

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