Gujarat HC verdict on Rahul Gandhi’s plea seeking stay on conviction in defamation case on Friday

Ahmedabad: Rahul Gandhi, a leader of the Congress, filed a motion for a stay of judgement in a criminal defamation action over a remark he made about the Modi surname. The Gujarat High Court is set to rule on the petition on Friday.

The court of Justice Hemant Prachchhak will render the decision at 11 am, according to the cause list released by the HC on Thursday.

A stay on conviction would pave the way for Gandhi’s reinstatement as a Member of Parliament (MP).

In May, Justice Prachchhak, while hearing Gandhi’s plea, had refused to grant any interim relief saying it will pass a final order after the summer vacation, which ended three weeks back.

During a hearing on April 29, Gandhi’s lawyer had argued that a maximum punishment of two years for a bailable, non-cognisable offence meant his client 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”.

A metropolitan magistrate’s court in Surat sentenced the former Congress president to two years in jail on March 23 after convicting him under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 499 and 500 (criminal defamation) in a 2019 case filed by Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Purnesh Modi.

Following the verdict, Gandhi, elected to the Lok Sabha from Wayanad in Kerala, was disqualified as MP under the provisions of the Representation of the People Act.

Gandhi challenged the order in a sessions court in Surat along with an application seeking a stay on the conviction. While granting him bail, the court, on April 20, refused to stay the conviction, after which he approached the high court.

Surat West MLA 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.

With PTI inputs