NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday closed the contempt proceedings against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over his comment 'chowkidar chor hai'. Rahul Gandhi faced contempt charges for wrongly attributing the 'chowkidar chow hai' remark to the Supreme Court. A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi said the court accepted Rahul Gandhi's “unconditional apology” in the matter and pulled him up saying that somebody in his position should be more careful. The bench warned him to be more careful about his future political remarks, "Mr Rahul Gandhi needs to be careful in future...,"the bench said.

The Supreme Court pronounced its verdict on the criminal contempt plea filed against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi by BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi for wrongly attributing to the SC his "chowkidar chor hai" remark in Rafale case against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Gandhi had made the remark on April 10, the day the top court had dismissed the Centre's preliminary objections over admissibility of certain documents for supporting the review petitions against the December 14 last year verdict in the Rafale case.

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Rahul Gandhi, who was then the President of the Congress Party, had told the bench that he has already tendered unconditional apology for wrongly attributing the remarks relating to the Prime Minister to the top court.

Senior advocate AM Singhvi, appearing for Rahul Gandhi, had told the bench that the Congress leader expressed regret over the wrongful attribution to the top court.

Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Meenakshi Lekhi, had submitted that the apology tendered by Rahul Gandhi should be rejected and action must be taken against him as per the law. Mukul Rohatgi also argued that the court should ask Rahul Gandhi to apologise to the public for his remarks.

The top court on April 15 had given a categorical clarification that in its Rafale verdict there was no occasion for it to make a mention of the contemptuous observation that "chowkidar Narendra Modi chor hain" as has been attributed to it by Rahul Gandhi.

Rahul Gandhi, in his explanation filed in the court earlier, had said that his statement was made in the "heat of political campaigning" and there was not the "slightest intention to insinuate" anything regarding the Supreme Court proceedings in any manner.

He had said that his April 10 statement was made in purely political context to counter the "misinformation campaign" being led by senior BJP functionaries as well as the government that the top court verdict of December 14 last year was a "clean chit" to the Centre regarding all the aspects of the Rafale deal.

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