The Supreme Court on Friday took a tough stance on filing of “frivolous” petitions and dismissed with a fine of Rs 1 lakh Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s plea seeking quashing of the August 7, 2023 notification restoring his Lok Sabha membership. Gave. ,

The Lok Sabha notification reinstated Rahul Gandhi’s membership following the apex court’s order staying his conviction in a 2019 defamation case over his ‘Modi’ nickname remark.

The apex court had stayed his sentencing in the defamation case on August 4, 2023. Gandhi represents Wayanad in the lower house of Parliament.

The petition filed by Lucknow-based Ashok Pandey came up for hearing before a bench of Justices BR Gavai and Sandeep Mehta.

The bench observed that despite being summoned twice for the hearing of the case, Pandey did not appear before it. It also cited two previous orders passed by the court on separate petitions filed by the petitioner.

The bench said the apex court had dismissed those petitions with costs of Rs 5 lakh and Rs 1 lakh respectively.

Dismissing the petition and imposing the cost, the bench said, “Filing of such frivolous petitions wastes precious time not only of the court but of the entire registry.”

The petitioner had made the Lok Sabha Speaker, Union of India, Election Commission of India and Rahul Gandhi respondents in the petition.

The bench also observed that the issue raised by the petitioner was similar to his previous petition, which was dismissed with a cost of Rs 1 lakh in October last year.

In the petition rejected in October, the petitioner had challenged the restoration of Rahul Gandhi’s Lok Sabha membership.

Last year, the top court had also imposed a fine of Rs 5 lakh on the petitioner for claiming in a separate PIL that the oath taken by the Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court was “defective”.

Gandhi was disqualified as an MP on March 24 last year after a Gujarat court convicted him of criminal defamation for comments he made about the Modi surname and sentenced him to two years’ imprisonment. .

The Gujarat High Court later rejected his plea to stay the conviction, saying “correctness in politics” was the need of the hour. After this, the apex court had stayed his conviction in the case.

BJP leader Purnesh Modi in 2019 accused Gandhi of his “How come Modi is the common surname of all thieves?” But a criminal defamation case was filed. Remarks made during an election rally in Kolar, Karnataka on April 13, 2019.

(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – PTI)