Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday filed a petition in the Gujarat High Court challenging a lower court decision to dismiss his appeal for a stay on his conviction in a criminal defamation case related to his comments about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s surname, reported Live Law.
The development comes five days after a sessions court in Surat had dismissed Gandhi’s plea saying that as a member of Parliament and the former president of the country’s second-largest political party, he should have been more careful with his words.
On March 23, Gandhi was sentenced to two years imprisonment in the case brought by Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Surat West MLA Purnesh Modi. In a rally in Karnataka’s Kolar ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the 52-year-old leader had asked: “Why all the thieves, be it Nirav Modi, Lalit Modi or Narendra Modi, have Modi in their names?”
Nirav Modi is a fugitive businessman accused in the Punjab National Bank scam while Lalit Modi is former Indian Premier League chief who has been banned for life by the cricket governing body.
The Congress leader was convicted under Sections 499 (defamation) and 500 (punishment for defamation) of the Indian Penal Code. The court, however, had granted him bail and suspended his sentence for 30 days.
A day after his conviction, Gandhi was disqualified as a Lok Sabha MP under the Representation of the People Act, 1951. According to Section 8(3) of the law, a legislator sentenced to jail for two years or more stands to be disqualified from the date of conviction till six years after serving time.
Additional Sessions Judge Robin Mogera had said that Gandhi that a “high standard of morality” was expected from the Congress leader.
On Thursday, the Congress had said that the conviction was upheld by the session court “contrary to all basic and elementary principles of law”.
Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi had said that Gandhi’s speech had been “distorted out of recognition” to serve the ends of the complainant.
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