Abduction, Rape Charges Completely False, Frivolous and Baseless: Rahul Gandhi

Rahul Gandhi, Congress general secretary, on Friday asked Supreme Court to discharge the allegations against him which claimed that he detained and sexually assaulted a girl in Uttar Pradesh.

Gandhi on Friday filed a three-page affidavit in SC saying that the allegations against him are "completely false and frivolous" and claimed that the petition filed against him by a former Samajwadi Party MLA are baseless.

"I emphatically deny the allegation of the writ petitioner of rape and detention by me and say both these allegations are false, malicious and baseless and no cognizance could be taken by any responsible person of such allegations made on a website," Gandhi said in his affidavit.

Last year, the apex court issued a noticed to the Congress MP from Amethi and UP police on the petition filed by Samajwadi Party MLA Kishore Samrite from Madhya Pradhesh. However, the 42-year-old replied to the notice on Friday saying that the allegations are planned to harm his public image.

Samrite in his petition filed at the Allahabad High Court said that Sukanya Singh, 24, and her parents went missing since Jan 2007, hardly two weeks after Gandhi and his five "foreigner friends"  had sexually assaulted Sukanya.

Samrite came to know about Sukanya after learning about the reports on the Internet. He also visited her house but the house was locked and the villagers were not ready to talk about the whereabouts of the girl and her family.

 According to Samrite alleged that Rahul had kidnapped the victim and her entire family.

After learning about Sukanya, he filed a petition before the Allahabad court. However, the court rejected his petition in March last year and imposed a fine of Rs 5 million on the leader for making frivolous allegations against Gandhi. The court also ordered a CBI probe against Samrite to find out whether it was a planned and deliberate attempt to defame Gandhi.

On March 7, the HC in its order stated, "We have ordered the CBI director to register a case against Samrite and all other persons who are found involved in the plan, if any, hatched in order to defame Shri Rahul Gandhi, Member of Parliament from Amethi."

The CBI later lodged a case against Samrite under Indian Penal Code Sections 120B (punishment of criminal conspiracy), 181 (for false statement on oath), 211 (false charges made with intend to injure) and 499-500 (defamation complaint).

After HC dismissed Samrite's petition, he moved SC and appealed against the HC order. The SC had stayed the HC order and issued notice to the UP government and Gandhi seeking response from them.

However, Gandhi responded to the petition with a counter-affidavit filed before a bench of Justices H L Dattu and C K Prasad. He urged the court to take action against Samrite for defaming him.