Plea in HC over ‘false statements’ made by Rahul Gandhi, Arvind Kejriwal against Centre

A division bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad granted time to public interest litigant Surjit Singh Yadav to file certain additional documents in relation to his plea and listed the matter on August 7.

The plea states that the petitioner came “across news items in electronic and print media where news related to waiving of loan to the tune of Rs.11 lakh crore had been broadcasted on NDTV” in 2021.

The plea claims that another channel News24 had “published more than two years ago that loans of 50 loan defaulters have been waived off and that loan amount was to the tune of Rs.68,000 Crore which included the name of Mehul Choksi”.

The plea states that these news items “were grossly misleading and were published by the media outlets” to create “confusion in the minds of the readers / viewers” so that the image of the Central Government could be downgraded in the eyes of the general public.

The plea further claims that the petitioner came across around “five years ago, on a TV Channel a statement made by Sh. Rahul Gandhi regarding waving off loan by the Central Government to the tune of Rs.8 Lakh Crore of 5 -10 Industrialists”. He claims that NDTV had also carried out news of Kejriwal “who had made a statement to the effect that loans of many industrialists were waived off by the Central Government and Lakhs of Crores of taxes of industrialists have also been waived off”.

The plea states that publication of “misleading statements” made by Gandhi and Kejriwal is a “deliberate attempt” to create a “negative image” of the Centre which has resulted in creating a negative image of the nation itself.

The plea seeks a direction to NDTV and News24 to remove false and misleading statements, made by Gandhi and Kejriwal from their platforms. It further seeks direction to the Central Bureau of Investigation to register a complaint and investigate & prosecute Gandhi and Kejriwal for making misleading and false statements “which were made with the intent to damage the image and credibility of Republic of India”.