Srinagar, The Supreme Court of India, in a hearing today, dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) that challenged the reinstatement of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s Lok Sabha membership. The court not only rejected the petition but also imposed a penalty of Rs 1 lakh on the petitioner.

According to a news release by Kashmir Media Service reports that the bench, led by Justice BR Gavai, determined that the petition constituted an abuse of the legal process since no fundamental rights of the petitioner had been infringed upon.

The subject of the hearing was a plea entered by advocate Ashok Pandey, which took issue with the restoration of Rahul Gandhi’s Lok Sabha membership by the Lok Sabha Secretariat. This restoration was a consequence of the Supreme Court’s decision on August 4 to put on hold his conviction in a case related to a comment he made about the ‘Modi’ surname.

To contextualize, during a campaign in Kolar city of the Indian state of Karnataka preceding the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Rahul Gandhi raised a question, asking, “Why do all thieves have Modi in their names, whether it is Nirav Modi, Lalit Modi or Narendra Modi? We don’t know how many more such Modis will come out.”