By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: With the word regret enclosed in brackets for the second time in as many affidavits, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday faced tough questions from the Supreme Court over his mistake of attributing a chowkidar chor hai remark to the apex court in the Rafale deal verdict. A bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi told senior advocate A M Singhvi: “When you commit mistake, you should admit the mistake.”

Pushed to a corner, Singhvi said Rahul will file a fresh affidavit tendering a clear apology. The bench allowed him to do so but said the opportunity to file an additional affidavit would not be an acknowledgement of the last two affidavits. Its admissibility would be considered on the next date of hearing.

The bench pointed out that while Rahul at one point in the affidavit admitted the mistake, at another he denied making the remarks. “We have great difficulty in understanding what you want to say in the affidavit,” the bench remarked.“You make the statement and then justify it. You take 22 pages to express regret but where is the complete regret? What is the meaning of expression ‘regret’ used in the bracket in the affidavit?”

On this Singhvi responded, “Regret is same as apology. I checked in the dictionary.” But realising he wasn’t making much headway, Singhvi offered to file a fresh affidavit.Singhvi earlier raised objections to the submissions made by senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for petitioner Meenakshi Lekhi, saying the essence of the affidavit was being distorted, adding he would like to clear the confusion through his counter. Lekhi had filed a contempt petition against Rahul for his remarks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the Rafale deal, where he sought to claim that the SC itself had said, chowkidar chor hai.

The court on May 6, will consider the admissibility of the new affidavit.

‘Not interested in your political stand’

“Keep your political stand with yourself. We are not concerned with your political stand,” the CJI told Rahul’s counsel AM Singhvi when he tried to put the chowkidar chor hai remark in context

(With IANS inputs)