The Gujarat High Court on Tuesday refused to grant an interim stay on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's conviction in a 2019 criminal defamation case over his "Modi surname" remark. Rahul Gandhi had filed the plea seeking a stay on his conviction in the defamation case filed by a BJP leader. The court said that it will give the verdict post vacations of the court.
Justice Hemant Prachchhak was hearing the plea filed by Rahul Gandhi challenging the April 20 order of the Surat sessions court declining a stay to his conviction in the criminal defamation case.
On April 26, High Court judge Justice Gita Gopi recused herself from hearing the case after it was brought before her for an urgent hearing. The matter was then assigned to the court of Justice Prachchhak, who took up the criminal revision application filed by Gandhi.
Gandhi was convicted in the case in 2019 and was sentenced to two years of imprisonment. However, the court had granted him bail in the case.
A metropolitan magistrate's court in Surat on March 23 sentenced the former Congress president 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 Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Gujarat MLA Purnesh Modi.
Following the verdict, Gandhi, elected to the Lok Sabha from Wayanad in Kerala in 2019, was disqualified as an MP under the provisions of the Representation of the People Act.
Gandhi, 52, challenged the order in the Surat sessions court along with an application seeking a stay to the conviction. While granting him bail, the court on April 20 refused to stay the conviction.
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.
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