SC to hear on July 21 Rahul Gandhi’s plea against Gujarat HC order refusing to stay his conviction in defamation case

Kathmandu: The Supreme Court on Tuesday fixed July 21 for hearing the plea of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi challenging the Gujarat High Court order which declined to stay his conviction in the criminal defamation case in which he was sentenced to two years in jail by Surat court over ‘Modi surname’ remark.

A bench headed by the Chief Justice of India agreed to hear Gandhi’s plea on Friday after senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi appearing for him mentioned the matter for urgent listing.

‘Supreme Court agrees to hear on July 21, the plea of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi challenging the Gujarat High Court order which declined to stay his conviction in the criminal defamation case in which he was sentenced to two years in jail by Surat court over ‘Modi surname’ remark,’ said Advocate Harshit Tolia, appearing for BJP complainant Purnesh Modi.

After his conviction in the case, Gandhi was declared disqualified as MP from Kerala’s Wayanad on March 24 following notification of the Lok Sabha Secretariat. Gandhi was sentenced to two years imprisonment which disqualified him as an MP under the rigors of the Representation of People Act.

Approaching the top court, Gandhi also sought a stay of the Gujarat High Court verdict which upheld his conviction. He said the High Court verdict “has no parallel or precedent in the jurisprudence of the law of defamation”. He contended that it was “not only curious but extremely significant, indeed sinister, that all earlier cases, including the one regarding the present speech, were filed by members and office bearers of the ruling party”.

It was submitted that the surname ‘Modi’, in different parts of the country, encompassed different communities and sub-communities, which usually have no commonality or uniformity at all. The Modi surname belonged to various castes.

The complainant, who simply has a ‘Modi’ surname, did not prove that he was prejudiced or damaged in any specific or personal sense, the plea filed in the apex court added. Gandhi’s plea said, ‘Unprecedentedly, in a case of criminal defamation, a maximum sentence of two years has been imposed. This itself is a rarest of rare occurrence.’

The High Court on July 7 affirmed the decision of a Gujarat Sessions court, which had refused to put on hold a magisterial court order on March 23 convicting Gandhi and handing out the maximum punishment provided for criminal defamation under the Indian Penal Code.

Rejecting Gandhi’s plea, the High Court has said that has been seeking a stay on his conviction on “absolutely non-existent grounds” and a stay on conviction is not a rule but an exception. In March, the magisterial court convicted Gandhi for his remarks ahead of the 2019 national polls about the ‘Modi’ surname.

After a magisterial court convicted Gandhi, he approached the Sessions court, which rejected his plea for a stay on his conviction on April 20. Thereafter, he approached the High Court. Congress leader was sentenced to two years in jail on March 23 under sections 499 and 500 (defamation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in a case filed by Purnesh Modi.

At a rally in Karnataka’s Kolar in April 2019, Rahul Gandhi, in a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said, ‘How come all the thieves have Modi as the common surname?’

RSS