Setback for Rahul Gandhi as Gujarat HC upholds defamation conviction in Modi surname case

Setback for Rahul Gandhi as Gujarat HC upholds defamation conviction in Modi surname case

Ahmedabad: Gujarat High Court on Friday dismissed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s plea seeking a stay on his conviction in a criminal defamation case over his “Modi surname” remark. While dismissing the plea, Justice Hemant Prachchhak noted that Gandhi is already facing 10 cases across India, adding the order of the lower court was “just, proper and legal” in convicting the Congress leader. The HC noted that there is no reasonable ground to stay the conviction.

A stay to the conviction would have paved the way for Gandhi’s reinstatement as a Member of Parliament. A metropolitan magistrate’s court in Surat on March 23 sentenced Gandhi to two years in jail after convicting him under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 499 and 500 (criminal defamation) in a 2019 case filed by BJP Gujarat MLA Purnesh Modi.

The MLA had 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.