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Rahul moves Bombay HC in defamation case on linking RSS to Lankesh murder

Mumbai: Congress MP Rahul Gandhi has moved the Bombay High Court seeking to quash a defamation complaint filed against him over his remarks allegedly linking the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) with the 2017 murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh.

The case against him can not be clubbed with that filed against Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Sitaram Yechury as they made the statements in question on different occasions and belong to two different parties with distinct or even opposite ideologies, Gandhi’s petition said. Justice S V Kotwal posted the plea for hearing on December 5.

Dhrutiman Joshi, a lawyer, filed a private complaint before a magistrate in 2017 against Rahul Gandhi, his mother and fellow Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, and Yechury, seeking action against them for alleged defamation under sections 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code.

In 2019, the magistrate’s court dismissed the case against Sonia Gandhi but issued notice to Rahul Gandhi and Yechury.

Both of them filed an application seeking to dismiss the complaint on the ground that they should not be put on trial jointly. The magistrate’s court, however, rejected the application, following which Rahul Gandhi moved the HC in August this year.

Rahul Gandhi is facing several defamation cases across the country. He was convicted by a Surat court earlier this year but the conviction was eventually stayed by the SC.

Gauri Lankesh, a Bengaluru-based journalist and activist, was murdered outside her home on September 5, 2017, allegedly by right-wing extremists.

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