New Delhi : The Supreme Court on Thursday pulled up Rahul Gandhi over his march to the top court on October 12 and asked the Leader of the Opposition to explain his actions. The top court also issued notices to the Election Commission (ECI) and the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) on petitions filed by the INDIA bloc and AIMIM’s Asaduddin Owaisi over alleged irregularities in the SIR exercise.
Issuing notice does not mean that we are condemning anything. But one objection, before that. We would like to ask one of the petitioners about his conduct on the next date of hearing, the CJI told senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who appeared for Rahul. “Nobody can browbeat the judiciary, the CJI further said. The CJI’s observation came after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and senior advocate Gaurav Bhatia mentioned the October 12 march.
These are feeble attempts that nobody takes note of. We are not sitting in an ivory tower. We are aware of things,” the CJI further said. The Congress MP and top leaders of the INDIA bloc marched towards the Supreme Court on Monday as the opposition escalated their campaign for the removal of Gyanesh Kumar and scrapping of the SIR. Rahul entered the Supreme Court to personally file a joint petition challenging the ECI’s decisions on the SIR exercise, which has so far excluded about 13 crore voters across India.
The top court also sought the Centre’s reply on pleas challenging the move to denotify Jantar Mantar as a protest site. The CJI said the court would examine whether the Delhi Police “applied its mind” before the move. “We are issuing notice to the Centre, Delhi Police, seeking their reply. Let them reply. If it doesn’t satisfy, then the law will run its course,” the top court said. With the OG protest site off limits, the Delhi Police, which comes under the Union Home Ministry, proposed three alternative sites – Ramlila Maidan, Burari Ground and CBD Ground.
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