Modi surname defamation case: No relief from Gujarat HC, Rahul to move SC

HC says conviction order 'proper'; Cong says 'disappointing, not unexpected'

The Gujarat High Court (HC) on Friday dismissed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's plea seeking a stay on his conviction by a Surat magistrate’s court in a criminal defamation case over his “Modi surname” remark. The Congress said it would challenge the order in the Supreme Court.

On Friday, Justice Hemant Prachchhak of the Gujarat HC said Gandhi was already facing 10 criminal cases across India and that the lower court’s order was “just, proper, and legal” in handing over a two-year jail term to Gandhi for his remarks.

The order pointed to a complaint filed against Gandhi in a court in Pune by the grandson of V D ‘Veer’ Savarkar for the Congress leader’s comment on the founder of the Hindu Mahasabha at Cambridge. “Another complaint against him was filed in the concerned court of Lucknow,” it said.

Gandhi lost his Lok Sabha membership from Wayanad after a metropolitan magistrate’s court in Surat sentenced him to two years in jail on March 23 in a case filed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP’s) Gujarat MLA Purnesh Modi. Gandhi then challenged the order in a sessions court in Surat, which is still 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 moved the HC. On Friday, Justice Prachchhak directed the district and sessions court of Surat to hear Gandhi’s appeal against the sentence “as expeditiously as possible”.

Congress spokesperson and Gandhi’s counsel in the case, Abhishek Singhvi, said the Gujarat HC dismissing the plea was “highly disappointing, but not unexpected”.

He said Rahul Gandhi’s questions, backed with facts and figures on demonetisation, the government’s “clean chit” to China, and the economic situation, had rattled the government, which is finding newer ways to throttle his voice.

“I will not reiterate the gymnastics that took place at the trial stage, where the complainant (BJP MLA Purnesh Modi) got a one-year stay on his own complaint and then revived it after a change on the Bench. And it was that second magistrate who proceeded to pass that order of conviction. Those are facts, and the facts speak for themselves,” he said.

Congress leader P Chidambaram said the whole purpose of the defamation case was to disqualify him from Parliament. “Everything that has followed is an attempt to justify the disqualification. In the 132 years of the Indian Penal Code has been in force, there has been no case of slander (verbal defamation) where a court has imposed the maximum punishment of two years,” he said.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said no party leader or worker feared BJP’s “political conspiracy”. Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said Rahul Gandhi was fighting the battle for truth and people’s interests, and an “arrogant regime” is using all the tricks to deter him.