The Supreme Court
on Friday took a stern view on the filing of "frivolous" petitions
and dismissed with a cost of Rs 1 lakh a plea seeking the quashing of an August
7, 2023, notification that restored the Lok Sabha membership of Congress leader
Rahul Gandhi.
The Lok Sabha
notification restored the membership of Rahul Gandhi following an apex court
order staying his conviction in a 2019 defamation case over his 'Modi' surname
remark.
The top court had
on August 4, 2023, stayed his conviction in the defamation case. Gandhi
represents Wayanad in the Lower House of Parliament.
The plea filed by
Lucknow-based Ashok Pandey came up for hearing before a bench of Justices B R
Gavai and Sandeep Mehta.
The bench
observed that Pandey had not appeared before it despite the matter being called
twice for hearing.
It also referred
to two previous orders passed by the court on separate petitions filed by the
petitioner.
The bench noted
that the top court had dismissed those petitions with costs of Rs 5 lakh and Rs
1 lakh respectively.
"Filing of
such frivolous petitions waste precious time not only of the court but also the
entire registry," it observed while dismissing the plea and imposing the
cost.
The petitioner
had arrayed the Lok Sabha Speaker, the Union of India, the Election Commission
of India and Rahul Gandhi as respondents in the plea.
The bench also
observed that the issue raised by the petitioner was identical to the one
raised in his earlier plea, which was dismissed in October last year with a
cost of Rs 1 lakh.
In the plea
dismissed in October, the petitioner had challenged the restoration of Rahul
Gandhi's Lok Sabha membership.
Last year, the
apex court had also imposed a cost of Rs 5 lakh on the petitioner for claiming
in a separate PIL that the oath taken by the Bombay High Court chief justice
was "defective".
Gandhi was
disqualified as an MP on March 24 last year after a Gujarat court convicted and
sentenced him to two years imprisonment for criminal defamation for comments he
made about the Modi surname.
The Gujarat High
Court later dismissed his petition for a stay on conviction, observing that
"purity in politics" is the need of the hour. Thereafter, the apex
court had stayed his conviction in the case.
BJP leader
Purnesh Modi had filed a criminal defamation case against Gandhi in 2019 over
his "How come all thieves have Modi as the common surname?" remark
made during an election rally in Kolar in Karnataka on April 13, 2019.