Rahul Gandhi moves Supreme Court for stay on conviction in ‘Modi’ surname defamation case

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 15

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday moved the Supreme Court against the Gujarat High Court order dismissing his plea seeking a stay on his conviction in a criminal defamation case over his “Modi surname” remark.

Gandhi’s petition was likely to be taken up for hearing early next week.

Following a Surat Court’s March 23 verdict convicting him in the defamation case and giving him two-year imprisonment, Gandhi – elected to the Lok Sabha from Wayanad in Kerala in 2019 -- was disqualified as an MP under the Representation of the People Act.

A stay on his conviction would pave the way for his reinstatement as an MP.

Noting that Gandhi was already facing 10 criminal cases across India, Justice Hemant Prachchhak of the Gujarat High Court had on July 7 said there was no reasonable ground to stay the conviction and the Magisterial court’s order was “just, proper and legal”.

However, even after dismissal of his plea for stay of conviction by the Sessions Court, Rahul Gandhi will not go to jail as his sentence remains suspended.

The high court had noted that Gandhi, while addressing a poll rally where he made the controversial remark, took Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s name in his speech to “add sensation” and with an intention to “affect the result” of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

The high court, however, had requested the District Judge concerned to decide Gandhi’s criminal appeal “on its own merits and in accordance with law as expeditiously as possible.”

BJP MLA and former minister in Gujarat government Purnesh Modi 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.

A metropolitan magistrate’s court in Surat had on March 23 sentenced Rahul Gandhi to two-year jail term after convicting him under sections 499 and 500 (criminal defamation) of the IPC in a 2019 case filed by Gujarat BJP MLA Purnesh Modi.

Gandhi challenged the order in a sessions court in Surat, which remains pending, along with an application seeking a stay to the conviction. While granting him bail, the sessions court on April 20 refused to stay the conviction, following which, he had moved the HC. Noting that as many as 10 criminal cases are pending against the applicant,” the HC said, “After this complaint, another complaint was filed in a court in Pune by the grandson of Veer Savarkar for Gandhi’s defamatory utterance against Veer Savarkar at Cambridge. Another complaint against him was filed in the concerned court of Lucknow.”

Justice Prachchhak said “representatives of people should be men of clear antecedent” and noted a stay on conviction is not a rule, but an exception, resorted only in rare cases. Referring to the cases Gandhi was facing, the High Court further observed that “It is now the need of the hour to have purity in politics. Representatives of people should be men of clear antecedent.”

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