Grieved by what his party had described as “unfortunate”, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday evening knocked the doors of the Gujarat High Court seeking a stay on his conviction by a sessions court in a criminal defamation case against him.
Gandhi's counsel Tarannum Cheema said she had filed an appeal before the high court on Tuesday evening and the application was expected to be heard by a single-judge bench soon. The high court registry has not given a date so far, though.
Application challenging two-year jail sentence
On April 20, a Surat sessions court had rejected his plea pleading for suspension of his conviction by a magistrate’s court until his another application challenging his two-year jail sentence was decided.
The Sessions Court had rejected the contention that Gandhi’s disqualification as a Member of Parliament after his conviction would cause him “an irreparable and irreversible loss to him” and refused interim relief to him.
The Congress leader, who was elected to the Lok Sabha from Wayanad constituency in Kerala, was convicted by a Surat magistrate on March 23 for his controversial remark "All thieves have Modi surname."
Gandhi had, in a political campaign in 2019 in Kolar, Karnataka, linked Prime Minister Narendra Modi with fugitives like Nirav Modi and Lalit Modi.
He had said, "Nirav Modi, Lalit Modi, Narendra Modi. How come all the thieves have 'Modi' as a common surname?"
Purnesh Modi, a BJP Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA), filed a defamation case claiming that Rahul Gandhi had humiliated and defamed all those with the Modi surname.
