Congress president Rahul Gandhi has apologised to the Supreme Court for attributing the 'Chowkidar Chor Hai' jibe to the top court and has offered to file a fresh affidavit in the matter. The move came after the Supreme Court made it clear that the judges weren't convinced with his last affidavit as he did not spell out that he regretted his statement.

BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi, who filed the contempt case against Rahul, is not convinced with his apology and has demanded strict punishment. To discuss the issue, CNBC-TV18 spoke with Abhishek Manu Singhvi, the counsel for Rahul.

"From day one there is an explanation, then there is an affidavit and now there would be an additional affidavit. In the first two which stand filed, I had expressed regret after owning up to three offending passages, specifically from day one. Number two, he was therefore man enough, honest enough, sincere enough and humble enough to say the attribution to the court was wrong. Number three, according to us regret is the same as apology. It involves repentance. However we do not want to get into semantics and therefore we have no problem that having already regretted our attribution to the court, we will now also apologise for it," Singhvi stated.

According to him, political leaders have to be humble enough, man enough and sincere enough to own up to errors when they happen. "The errors happen in the heat of political campaigning which the affidavit explains. Possibly the best way is to read the order very carefully. You can say everything else in the political field but don't attribute it to the court. Unfortunately for the BJP, none of these standards is known to them or understood by them. Rahul Gandhi makes an error and he immediately is prepared to express regret and will apologise for it," the lawyer added.

First Published:Apr 30, 2019 8:40 PM IST