AHMEDABAD: The Gujarat High Court on Tuesday reserved its verdict on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s plea seeking a stay on his conviction in a criminal defamation case over his ‘Modi surname’ remark. Justice Hemant Prachhak also refused to give any interim protection to Rahul Gandhi during the hearing and said that the verdict will be pronounced after coming from leave.
In this case, a court in Surat convicted him and sentenced him to two years in prison, as a result of which he was disqualified from membership in the Lok Sabha. Justice Hemant Prachhak allowed the counsel for complainant Purnesh Modi to submit additional documents on Gandhi’s criminal revision petition against the Surat sessions court order and posted the matter for hearing on May 2.
Significantly, the sessions court had also rejected his plea to stay the conviction, against which Gandhi approached the High Court. On April 26, a special mention of the matter was made before Justice Geeta Gopi and a speedy hearing was sought, but she recused herself from the hearing. After this, the matter has been assigned to Justice Prachhak.
High Court judge Justice Hemant Prachhak on April 29 began hearing Gandhi’s revision petition against the April 20 order of the Surat sessions court, which had quashed his remark that ‘why all thieves are surnamed Modi’. His conviction for criminal defamation was refused to be stayed. If the court stays Rahul Gandhi’s conviction, it will pave the way for his reinstatement as a Lok Sabha MP.
Surat’s Metropolitan Magistrate court on March 23 convicted the former Congress president under sections 499 and 500 (criminal defamation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in a 2019 case filed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Purnesh Modi in Gujarat. While staying, he was sentenced to two years in jail.
Following the verdict, Gandhi was disqualified from membership in Parliament under the provisions of the Representation of the People Act. Rahul Gandhi was elected to the Lok Sabha in 2019 from Wayanad in Kerala. On April 20, the sessions court in Surat rejected his plea for a stay on the conviction of the Congress leader. Rahul Gandhi is currently out on bail in this case.
