SC says perplexed over separate listing of contempt case against Gandhi, Rafale review pleas

The Supreme Court Monday said it was "little perplexed" over separate listing, contrary to its order, of the pleas seeking review of its verdict in Rafale case and the contempt plea against Congress President Rahul Gandhi for wrongly attributing to the apex court his "chokidar chor hai" remark against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

A special bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said it had made it clear earlier that both the matters would be heard together but despite that, the contempt petition was not listed for hearing along with the review pleas on Monday.

The bench, also comprising Justices S K Kaul and K M Joseph, was told that the contempt petition against Gandhi was listed for hearing on May 10.

"We are little perplexed that the two cases are listed on two different dates when the order was that these matters will be heard together," the bench observed.

"This is the problem. There was order for listing both the matters together. We had dictated the order in an open court but it says one case on May 6 and other on May 10. How can this be done?," it said.

After a brief hearing, the bench ordered that the review pleas and contempt petition against Gandhi be listed together for hearing on May 10.

"The present matters and contempt petition (criminal)... be listed together on May 10 at 2.00 PM," the bench said.

"We make it clear that the hearing scheduled for May 10 would be taken up and parties shall make an endeavour to complete the same on the said date. Rejoinder to the replies of Union of India may be filed, in the meantime," the bench said in its order.

At the outset, advocate Prashant Bhushan, who is one of the petitioners in the case along with former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie, told the bench that there were three pleas before the court.

Bhushan said besides the review plea, there were two other applications -- one seeking perjury action against unknown government servants for allegedly misleading the court during the Rafale case hearing earlier and the other for production of certain documents.

Bhushan said he would argue on the review plea and application for production of certain documents