Ahead of the Supreme Court  taking up the matter of contempt against him, the Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Monday apologized to the apex court and accepted that the court never used the words he quoted and said he had had used the words in the heat of political campaigning.

The court had served notice to Rahul after the Rafale verdict last week where the apex court agreed to a review petition admitting the documents prinited by some media organizations. The  court  asked him to explain why he chose to incorrectly attribute the phrase ‘chowkidar chor hai’ to the apex court judgment in the Rafale case. A Bench led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi  had stated that the apex court had “no occasion to make such observations” in its April 10 judgment, which solely concerned a legal question about the admissibility of certain documents as evidence in the Rafale review petitions. The court ordered. Gandhi to reply on or before April 22. The court order had come on a criminal contempt petition filed by BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi.

Besides giving an undertaking not to do it in future, Rahul has also said that he will not ” attribute any views, observations or findings to the Court in political addresses to the media and in public speeches, unless such views, observations or findings are recorded by the Court.”

The contempt case will come up for hearing tomorrow.

–India Legal Bureau