LUCKNOW: Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, in a submission before the Allahabad High Court on Wednesday, claimed that he had not incited the Sikh community to rise in rebellion during his speech in the US last year, when he had said the fight is about whether Sikhs in India will be allowed to wear turbans or visit gurdwaras.
Rahul Gandhi made the submission in the HC through his lawyer, challenging an order of the Varanasi court directing the magistrate court to re-hear a plea seeking registration of an FIR against him over his alleged remarks on Sikhs in India.
Gandhi's lawyer, senior advocate Gopal Chaturvedi, submitted before the bench of Justice Sameer Jain that his entire speech was not considered by the court to gather his intent.
Advocate Chaturvedi contended that whether Rahul Gandhi wanted to wage a war against the government of India couldn’t be deciphered from some stray sentence that was part of the speech.
In the submission, Rahul Gandhi said: “What I said before this, what I said after this, is not mentioned... Based on 25 words, mens rea can't be seen... unless the entire speech is before the court, the intention cannot be attributed."
Gandhi's lawyer also argued that the sessions court of Varanasi did not take his points of argument into account and that the order impugned was confined to Section 208 of the BNS instead of addressing the basic argument as to whether a cognizable offence was made out or not.
Calling the judgment approach perverse, he sought that the matter be remanded back to the sessions court to decide in toto from the beginning.
Advocate Chaturvedi also submitted that Rahul Gandhi had not targeted any specific government and that it can't be said that he attempted to wage a war against the government by giving the alleged speech, as he had neither taken the side of Pakistan nor the terrorists.
Earlier, in July, an additional district and sessions court in Varanasi set aside a magistrate court's order that had dismissed a plea seeking registration of an FIR against the Congress MP over his alleged remarks on Sikhs during his US trip in September 2024.
Additional district and sessions judge Yajuvendra Vikram Singh, while hearing the revision plea, had directed the magistrate to hear the matter afresh in light of the Supreme Court’s precedents.
The revision plea was filed in the sessions court by Nageshwar Mishra, challenging the dismissal of his initial plea by the magistrate court, wherein he had sought registration of an FIR against Rahul Gandhi.