Mid-Day

The Supreme Court today gave a clean chit to Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi, saying that the 2006 allegation of gang rape against him and his friends was fake.

Supreme Court today gave a clean chit to Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi in a rape case (File pic)

An apex court bench of Justice BS Chauhan and Justice Swatanter Kumar said the allegation was "without substance and not even an iota of evidence" was there to support it.

The court imposed a fine of Rs 5 lakh on petitioner Kishore Smrite who had moved the Allahabad High Court seeking production of the victim.

The court said Smrite "did not approach the high court with clean hands".

The allegation had "damaged the public image of Rahul Gandhi", the court said.

Smrite, on the basis of a website report which alleged that on December 3, 2006 Rahul Gandhi and his six friends who were in Amethi, had wrongfully confined a girl and raped her, moved the habeus corpus petition in the high court 2011 seeking the production of the girl.