Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi has expressed regret before the Madhya Pradesh High Court over remarks made during the 2018 Assembly election campaign that triggered a criminal defamation case filed by Kartikeya Singh Chouhan, son of former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

The matter came up before the Jabalpur Bench of the High Court during the hearing of Gandhi's petition seeking the quashing of criminal proceedings initiated against him by a Special MP/MLA Court in Bhopal.

Appearing for Gandhi, his counsel told the court that the Congress leader stood by a public clarification issued a day after the speech and regretted the inadvertent mention of Kartikeya Singh Chouhan's name, The Indian Express reported.

According to Gandhi's submissions, the disputed statement was made at an election rally in Jhabua on October 29, 2018, while he was referring to the Panama Papers controversy.

His counsel said Gandhi realised the next day that Kartikeya Singh Chouhan had been wrongly named and subsequently issued a clarification on October 30, 2018, stating that he had intended to refer to the son of the then Chhattisgarh chief minister and not to Kartikeya Singh Chouhan or his father, who was then serving as Madhya Pradesh chief minister.

The Congress leader's lawyer further informed the court that Gandhi continued to stand by that clarification and had expressed regret for the mistake. On this basis, Gandhi urged the High Court to put an end to the criminal proceedings pending before the Special MP/MLA Court.

The defamation case arose after Gandhi alleged during the 2018 campaign that Kartikeya Singh Chouhan's name appeared in the Panama Papers leak.

Rejecting the allegation, Kartikeya Singh maintained that neither he nor his family had any connection with the offshore financial documents and subsequently filed a complaint under Sections 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code, alleging that the statement had harmed his reputation.

In December 2024, the Special MP/MLA Court in Bhopal took cognisance of the complaint and summoned Rahul Gandhi to stand trial. Gandhi then approached the High Court seeking to quash the summons and terminate the proceedings.

Appearing for the complainant, advocate Sankalp Kochhar said, “We argued in court that Gandhi’s regret be part of the order and the application be then disposed off.”

The High Court is now considering whether Gandhi's clarification and expression of regret are sufficient grounds to close the criminal defamation proceedings arising from the nearly eight-year-old political speech.