Rahul Gandhi moves Gujarat High Court seeking stay on conviction in defamation case

Top Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has moved the Gujarat High Court seeking a stay on his conviction in a defamation case, days after the Surat Sessions Court rejected his plea.

The appeal is filed against the April 20 order by the court and the matter will come up for hearing in the due course of time. Rahul was convicted by a magistrate court and sentenced to two years in jail, a judgement that cost him his Lok Sabha membership.

Rahul, who vacated his official bungalow on April 22 on a notice by Lok Sabha Secretariat, appealed in the Surat Sessions Court against the verdict and sought a stay on his conviction. A stay on conviction would mean that his disqualification as Lok Sabha MP would be revoked pending the final judgement of the court.

On Tuesday, senior Congress MP and lawyer Abhishek Singhvi, who is leading his legal battle, told reporters that there is a "legal ladder" and Rahul could not have directly approached the Supreme Court, as suggested by some.

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"If we go to the Supreme Court directly and the judges tell us that we should have first gone to the lower courts, the same people who are advising this would be the first to criticise us," Singhvi, who is likely to appear for Rahul in the high court, said.

On April 20, Singhvi had called the Surat Sessions Court order “most unfortunate, most unsustainable and erroneous”.

Referring to the court noting in its judgement that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and 13 crore others have been defamed by Rahul’s speech, he claimed that it showed that the judge is “overshadowed by the exalted office” of the Prime Minister. “Clearly, unfortunately influenced by the high office of the Prime Minister, forgetting that the Prime Minister is not the complainant,” he had then said.

Singhvi also said the court has “wrongly” cited various judgements in its order with some not having any link to the case and some others actually favouring Rahul.

He had said, “a most unfortunate and unsustainable legal decision of the magistrate has been upheld in an even more unsustainable and erroneous judgement of the Sessions Court.”