Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma in an apparent reference to the Congress hailing the Supreme Court verdict on Rahul Gandhi said on Friday that the judiciary is abused if it convicts and celebrated when it grants bail.
“Heights of duplicity!” Sarma tweeted hours after the apex court stayed Gandhi's conviction in a 2019 defamation case over his Modi surname remark. “You abuse the judiciary when you get convicted, and when the same judiciary grants you bail, you say justice has prevailed,” Sarma, a prominent leader of the BJP in the northeast, posted on the micro-blogging site without making any direct reference.
Heights of duplicity!
— Himanta Biswa Sarma (@himantabiswa) August 4, 2023
You abuse the judiciary when you get convicted, and when the same judiciary grants you bail, you say justice has prevailed.
Meanwhile, the state Congress welcomed the SC judgment staying Gandhi's conviction and its senior leader Debabrata Saikia said it has delivered justice. He said that with the road for Gandhi’s return to the Lok Sabha cleared, the latter will continue to place the people’s problems before the government.
“We had maintained from the very beginning that it was a conspiracy of the BJP to disqualify Rahul Gandhi from the Lok Sabha. He had exposed before the Parliament how the government was working for a select few and not for the masses,” Saikia, who is the leader of opposition in Assam Assembly said.
“The court has delivered justice. It has paved the way for Rahul ji to return to Parliament and continue placing the problems of the people before the government. We are happy and confident that he will continue to be the voice of the people,” he added.
The top court on Friday stayed a Gujarat High Court verdict that dismissed his plea seeking a stay on his conviction in a defamation case over his Modi surname remark. It said that the trial court did not give reason to justify the maximum sentence of two years to Rahul Gandhi prescribed under the Indian Penal Code for defamation.
Former Gujarat minister Purnesh Modi had filed a criminal defamation case in 2019 against Gandhi for reportedly saying "How come all thieves have Modi as the common surname?" at an election rally in Kolar in Karnataka on April 13, 2019.
Besides Purnesh Modi, many other BJP leaders across the country filed defamation suits against the top Congress leader.