Rahul moves SC challenging Gujarat HC’s refusal to stay conviction in defamation case

New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi moved the Supreme Court on Saturday challenging the Gujarat High Court’s July 7 order which dismissed his plea seeking a stay on his conviction in a defamation case over his “Modi surname” remark.

The appeal has been filed by Gandhi through advocate on-record Prasanna S.

Gandhi was disqualified as a Member of Parliament on March 24, 2023 after a Gujarat court convicted him and sentenced him to a two-year imprisonment on charges of criminal defamation for comments he made about the Modi surname. In a setback to the 53-year-old Gandhi, the high dismissed his petition for a stay on conviction on July 7, observing that “purity in politics” is the need of the hour.

A stay on Gandhi’s conviction could have paved the way for his reinstatement as a Lok Sabha MP but he failed to get any relief from either the sessions court or the Gujarat High Court. In his verdict, Justice Hemant Prachchhak noted public representatives should be “men of clear antecedent” and that a stay on conviction is not a rule but an exception exercised only in rare cases. There was no reasonable ground to stay the conviction, he added. Delivering a 125-page verdict, Justice Prachchhak had also said Gandhi, a former Congress president, was already facing 10 criminal cases across several states, adding the lower order awarding him a two-year jail term for his remarks was “just, proper and legal”. The judge maintained it was not an “individual-centric defamation case”, but something which affected a “large section of the society”.

The court also noted Gandhi took Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s name in his speech to “add sensation” and with an intention to “affect the result” of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. On July 7, BJP MLA Purnesh Modi, complainant in the defamation case against Gandhi, filed a caveat in the top court seeking that he be heard if the Congress leader moves a plea challenging the high court verdict refusing to stay his conviction in the case.