Attorney General KK Venugopal has declined to grant consent to initiate contempt of court proceedings against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi ...
Attorney General KK Venugopal has declined to grant consent to initiate contempt of court proceedings against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Bar and Bench reported on Tuesday.
“The question of my granting consent would not arise,” Venugopal said. “In any event, I am of the opinion that the statements in question are too vague to be said to have lowered the authority of the institution in the eyes of the public.”
The consent of the attorney general or the solicitor general is required before the Supreme Court can hear a criminal contempt petition filed by a private individual.
Advocate Vineet Jindal, who had written to Venugopal seeking to initiate the contempt proceedings against Rahul Gandhi, had accused the Congress leader of making comments against the judiciary and lowering its dignity.
“This country has a legal system where one had 100% independence in voicing his/her opinion,” Jindal quoted Gandhi as saying. “It is very clear that the Bharatiya Janata Party is inserting its people in all these institutions/systems. It is very obvious! They are taking away the institutional framework of this country.” It is, however, not clear which statements Jindal referred to.
Jindal said that Gandhi’s remark that “inserting its people in all these institutions” were scandalising the judicial system. “A democracy requires a judiciary,...
