SC imposes Rs 1L cost on lawyer for challenging restoration of Rahul Gandhi’s Lok Sabha membership

New Delhi: A bench comprising Justices B R Gavai and Sandeep Mehta deemed the petition "frivolous," stating that such petitions are intended to waste the valuable time of the court and the entire Supreme Court registry.

Rahul Gandhi's parliamentary membership was reinstated following a Supreme Court order that stayed his conviction in a 2019 criminal defamation case related to remarks he made about the 'Modi' surname.

The Supreme Court observed that in October 2023, it had dismissed a similar Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by advocate-petitioner Ashok Pandey, imposing a fine of Rs one lakh for challenging the restoration of Lok Sabha membership of Nationalist Congress Party leader Mohammed Faizal.

In the present plea, Pandey claimed that the disqualification based on conviction and sentence will continue to operate till it is set aside in appeal. He further sought a directive for the Election Commission to declare the vacancy of the seat held by Gandhi and to conduct fresh elections.

The bench said every petition needs to go through multiple verification exercises in the court registry. It further added that exemplary cost ought to be imposed on such a petition to deter litigants from misusing the jurisdiction of public interest litigation.

In August last year, the Supreme Court reinstated Rahul Gandhi's parliamentary membership, which he had lost due to a two-year jail term imposed by a lower court in the 2019 criminal defamation case.

The court had then stayed the Congress leader’s conviction on the grounds that the trial judge failed to explain why Gandhi deserved the maximum punishment under the law. The bench had said that continuation of Gandhi’s disqualification would deprive the people of his constituency of proper representation in Parliament.