Rahul Gandhi to challenge defamation conviction on April 3

Rahul may personally go to Surat

Ending speculation over his next course of action, top Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday will file an appeal challenging his conviction and sentence in a defamation case in Surat Sessions Court.

Rahul will fly to Surat, ten days after a district court sentenced to two years, and would be present in the court to file the petition, which is also likely to seek an interim stay on his conviction till the matter is finally disposed off, so that he could reclaim his Lok Sabha membership.

If Gandhi does not get relief from the Surat Sessions court or a higher court by April 22, he will have to go to jail.

He would also need a suspension of his conviction to retain his Lok Sabha membership.

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Rahul's legal team is confident that he would get relief from the court very soon and would get to keep his Lok Sabha membership. Similar cases have been filed in other cities, including in Patna and Ranchi.

At a press conference here on March 25, Rahul had refused to apologise saying he says things after giving a thought to it. He also said, “I am not (VD) Savarkar, My name is Gandhi. Gandhi does not seek apology from anyone.

”The leadership has asked party workers from Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Gujarat to express their solidarity with Rahul, who was sentenced to two years in prison in a defamation case on March 23 filed by BJP MLA Purnesh Modi who claimed that the Congress leader defamed the 'Modis' in a speech in Karnataka's Kolar in April 2019.

However, the court had suspended the sentence, granted him bail and gave 30 days time to file an appeal. His conviction has led to the Lok Sabha Secretariat issuing a notification on his disqualification on March 24, which invited sharp criticism from a joint Opposition. Rahul was also asked to vacate his bungalow by April 22.

The BJP had raised questions about the delay in filing the appeal but Congress sources said Rahul's legal team did not want to rush through as similar cases were being filed elsewhere in the country and didn't want to give the opponents benefit by filing a faulty petition.

The Congress and Rahul's legal team headed by senior MP Abhishek Singhvi had questioned the conviction on several grounds, which also included the locus standi of the petitioner saying he was not mentioned by the leader.It also raised questions on the jurisdiction of the court, saying the remarks were made in Karnataka's Kolar while the case was filed in Surat. The sentence of two years, the maximum in such cases, was seen by legal experts as rare.