Modi Surname Row: Gujarat High Court Refuses To Grant Interim Relief To Rahul Gandhi In Defamation Case

NEW DELHI: The Gujarat High Court on Tuesday refused to grant any interim relief to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in the defamation case filed by him against his conviction by the Surat court for allegedly making derogatory remarks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Gujarat High Court, while refusing to grant any interim relief to Rahul Gandhi, reserved its order on  Rahul Gandhi's plea seeking a stay on conviction in the 2019 'Modi surname' defamation case.

Justice Hemant Prachchhak will pronounce the verdict after the vacation, the high court said in its order. The former Congress president had sought an interim stay of the conviction till the High Court pronounced the order on his petition.

 

Gujarat High Court reserves orders on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's plea seeking stay on conviction in 2019 'Modi surname' defamation case. Justice Hemant Prachchhak to pronounce the verdict after vacations.

Court refuses to grant any interim relief to Rahul Gandhi until then.… pic.twitter.com/OeFR2NcuZm — ANI (@ANI) May 2, 2023

 

A Surat court had on March 23 sentenced Rahul Gandhi, who represented the Wayanad parliamentary constituency in Kerala, to two years in jail after convicting him under sections 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code for criminal defamation in the case filed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Purnesh Modi.

The BJP MLA filed a criminal defamation case against Gandhi over his ''how come all thieves have Modi as the common surname'' remark made during an election rally at Kolar in Karnataka on April 13, 2019.

He was disqualified as a Member of Parliament after the Surat court's March 23 decision. 

During an earlier hearing on April 29, Gandhi's lawyer had argued that a maximum punishment of two years for a bailable, non-cognizable offence meant he could lose his Lok Sabha seat "permanently and irreversibly", which was a "very serious additional irreversible consequence to the person and the constituency he represents".

The alleged offence was non-serious in nature and did not involve moral turpitude, and yet Gandhi's disqualification, because of not staying his conviction, would affect him as well as the people of his constituency, he had said.

On April 3, Gandhi's lawyer approached the sessions court with two applications, one for bail and another for a stay on conviction pending his appeal, along with his main appeal against the lower court's order sentencing him to two years in jail. While the court granted his bail, it rejected his plea for a stay on conviction.

Last Wednesday, Justice Gita Gopi of the Gujarat High Court recused herself from hearing the case after it was presented before her for an urgent hearing. The matter was then assigned to Justice Hemant Prachchhak.