Overview
- A special MP‑MLA revisional court in Varanasi set aside the magistrate's May 27 order and directed a fresh hearing in the complaint on Wednesday, June 10, 2026.
- The complaint, filed by advocate Hari Shankar Pandey, says Gandhi called Lord Ram a 'mythological' or 'fictional' figure during an April 2025 interaction at Brown University and asks for prosecution for hurt religious sentiments.
- The revisional judge held that prior sanction is not required at the stage of filing or entertaining a complaint because the alleged statement was made outside parliamentary proceedings.
- The petition cites sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita including 196, 351, 353 and 356 and invokes the Ram Janmabhoomi judgment and recent Supreme Court remarks to argue the remarks merit criminal inquiry.
- No FIR has been registered yet and the magistrate will now rehear the matter, a step that could test how Indian courts treat speech made abroad by a sitting MP and shape future complaints over religiously sensitive political speech.