Legitimate right of Rahul Gandhi for speedy decision on defamation complaint: High Court
Mumbai(PTI): The Bombay High Court has said Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has a legitimate right for an expeditious decision on merits over a 2014 defamation complaint for his alleged remarks against the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
A single bench of Justice Prithviraj Chavan in the order of July 12 said Article 21 of the Constitution provides the right to a speedy trial for everyone and a free and fair trial is something that is absolutely necessary.
The court made the remarks while allowing Gandhi's petition to quash a magistrate's order permitting an RSS worker to submit fresh and additional documents in the pending criminal defamation complaint.
A detailed copy of the order was made available on Tuesday. In 2014, Sangh worker Rajesh Kunte lodged a defamation complaint before the Bhiwandi magistrate's court, claiming the Congress leader had made false and defamatory statements during a speech that the RSS was responsible for the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.
In 2023, the magistrate court at Bhiwandi in Maharashtra's Thane district permitted Kunte to submit the transcript of Rahul Gandhi's speech, which was part of a petition the Congress leader filed in 2014 seeking quashing of the summons issued to him.
Kunte contended that by including the transcript as part of his petition, Rahul Gandhi had "unambiguously owned up to the speech and its contents".
The Congress leader challenged the magistrate's order before the high court.
Justice Chavan in the order questioned Kunte and said due to his overall conduct, the matter is being "unnecessarily delayed and protracted".
"The respondent No. 2 (Kunte) is leaving no stone unturned to thwart the legitimate right of the petitioner (Rahul Gandhi) to get the complaint decided on merits as expeditiously as possible in view of Article 21 of the Constitution of India which provides speedy trial," the HC said.
"It is difficult to abstruse the conduct of the complainant. Free and fair trial is a sine qua non (a thing that is absolutely necessary) of Article 21 of the Constitution of India. It is trite law that justice should not only be done but it should be seen to have been done," the court said.
While quashing the trial court order, the HC said the magistrate appears to have completely disregarded the cardinal principle of criminal jurisprudence while permitting Kunte to rely on the documents as evidence.
The bench also directed the magistrate to decide and dispose of the complaint expeditiously as it has been pending since a decade.
The HC held that the copy of the transcript of the alleged speech was annexed to the petition only for a limited purpose of hearing of that petition in view of rules of the court.
"Obviously, the annexures which were annexed in the petition were only for a limited purpose of seeking quashing of the case and can by no stretch of imagination be construed as an admission on behalf of the petitioner in respect of the contents therein," it said.
The documents submitted by Kunte include parts of a petition filed by Rahul Gandhi in 2014, challenging the summons issued to him by the Bhiwandi court then. It includes a copy of the transcript of Rahul Gandhi's alleged speech taken from a CD containing the purported live telecast of the programme, which was annexed as an exhibit to the petition.
Rahul Gandhi in his plea claimed that in 2021, another bench of the high court disallowed Kunte from submitting any fresh documents in the case.
However, despite this, the magistrate permitted the submission of the documents as part of the complaint. The Congress leader claimed the magistrate's order allowing Kunte to submit fresh documents at this stage was "completely illegal and prejudicial".
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Bank account in Ramgarh tracked for fraudulent fund transactions across 24 states, 4 arrested
Ramgarh (Jharkhand) (PTI): Jharkhand police on Thursday said it has unearthed a network of interstate cyber frauds and arrested four miscreants for fraudulent transactions through a bank account in Ramgarh district after complaints of 274 suspected transactions in 24 states.
The states where complaints for fraudulent transactions were registered included Maharashtra, Karnataka, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh.
The action followed inputs received through 'Samanvaya portal', a centralised, web-based platform launched by the Union Home Ministry to curb cybercrime.
"We arrested four cyber miscreants after a current account with Kuju (Ramgarh) branch of the State Bank of India was found to have registered suspected financial transactions in 24 states with the help of the Pratibimba portal of the Home Ministry through the Samanvaya portal," Ramgarh Superintendent of Police Mukesh Kumar Lunayat said.
During the probe, police found that the account was opened under the MSME Udyam Registration scheme in the name of Shree Ganesh Enterprises, he said.
The account had been linked to as many as 274 complaints from different states related to cyber fraud and illegal fund transfers.
The registered proprietors of the enterprise were identified as Rahul Gupta (37), Ravi Kumar Verma (34), and Ajay Sharma (33), all residents of Ramgarh district, a statement from the Ramgarh police said.
During interrogation, Rahul Gupta and Ravi Kumar Verma revealed that they had opened multiple current accounts at the behest of Ritesh Agrawal alias Munna (40) and Sonu Kumar Jha (34).
They admitted receiving Rs 1.2 lakh in exchange for facilitating the opening of these accounts.
"The accused further confessed to sharing OTPs, activating mobile banking services, and handing over control of the accounts to the main operators through WhatsApp and Telegram groups. These accounts were then allegedly used to route fraudulent transactions.
Police said mobile data analysis of the accused led to the recovery of crucial digital evidence, including details of SIM cards, bank accounts, passbooks, ATM cards, QR code scanners, Aadhaar cards, and PAN cards shared through messaging platforms.
A total of four accused have been arrested so far and sent to judicial custody.
A case has been registered at the Cyber Crime Police Station under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) 2023 and Sections 66C and 66D of the Information Technology Act, 2000.
Further investigation is underway, the police said.
