All senior Congress leaders went into a huddle in the AICC headquarters on Friday evening for a strategy meeting after the Lok Sabha secretariat announced Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification. The thinking in the Congress camp is that the disqualification can be done only by the President of India and that too after consultation with the Election Commission. In other words, the party feels that according to the Constitution, there can be no automatic disqualification.
About Rahul's legal team strategy
Rahul’s legal team will be adopting a two-pronged strategy: One before the Sessions Court -- challenging the Surat conviction -- and one before the Supreme Court -- challenging the disqualification and seeking a stay on the by-election to the Wayanad seat. According to senior party leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who is also a senior advocate, the party will challenge the conviction and, once it obtains stay, the pedestal on which the disqualification rests will automatically be gone.
“We are appealing in a few days. If an attempt is made in the meantime to conduct the by-election for Rahul's Wayanad seat, we shall get a stay from the court. If there is delay, we shall go to the higher courts,” Singhvi said in reply to a question.
Singhvi also said the mandatory requirement of jurisdiction by the Surat magistrate was not followed and this is written in the judgment as an objection was raised by Rahul's lawyer.
“As I told you on Thursday, a provision has been specifically created in law, which says if I allegedly commit defamation in place X, in this case Kolar, Karnataka, and if somebody chooses to sue me in Gujarat or Bihar, as in this case, Surat, then the magistrate, before a complaint is filed, mandatorily must conduct a preliminary enquiry as to whether he has jurisdiction to start with. This point was raised by Rahul Gandhi’s lawyers and noted in the judgement but was not decided. Admittedly, no enquiry was conducted because there was a tearing hurry to go ahead with a place which might well be without any jurisdiction at all, namely, Surat, Gujarat,” Singhvi told the media.
He also pointed out how the magistrate was changed to allegedly secure a favourable judgment. The case was filed in April 2019 before Magistrate Dave, but the magistrate was changed and the judgment came from Chief Judicial Magistrate H N Varma.
Rahul Gandhi was given 30-day window by court
As of now, Rahul has a 30-day window during which he can prepare his case and challenge the Surat court verdict in a higher court. However, unless a stay on the conviction is granted, Rahul will not be able to contest elections for the next eight years by virtue of this disqualification.
Those in the strategy meeting included Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, former Congress President Sonia Gandhi and former union minister P Chidambaram as also general secretaries Priyanka Vadra, K C Venugopal, Jairam Ramesh, Rajiv Shukla and Tariq Anwar as also senior leaders Ambika Soni, Anand Sharma, Mukul Wasnik, Salman Khurhid and Pawan Kumar Bansal.
