A court in Delhi directed the police to file an action-taken report on a plea seeking directions to file a first information report against Congress President Rahul Gandhi for allegedly making seditious comments about Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2016, PTI reported.
Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal listed the matter for further hearing on May 15.
Lawyer Joginder Tuli had filed the complaint asking the court to direct the police to register an FIR against Gandhi for accusing Modi of “hiding behind the blood of soldiers”. He sought an FIR for obscenity, insulting a public figure and committing the act of sedition.
The complaint referred to Gandhi’s speech at a public meeting in New Delhi on October 6, 2016, when he said: “You [Modi] are hiding behind the blood of soldiers in Jammu and Kashmir and those who carried out the surgical strikes for India. You are exploiting their sacrifices, which is very wrong.”
Gandhi had made the remark after India claimed to have conducted pre-dawn surgical strikes across the Line of Control on “terror launchpads”. The strikes followed an attack on an Army base in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir, in which 17 Indian soldiers were killed.
Tuli said the police should have acted against Gandhi as soon as he made the speech. Tuli said he had approached the police soon after the speech, but they had not filed a case.
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