The Gujarat High Court on Saturday said it will continue hearing on May 2, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi\u2019s plea challenging the Surat sessions court\u2019s order that refused to stay his conviction in the criminal defamation case over the 2019 \u201cModi surname\u201d remark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rahul Gandhi\u2019s counsel, Senior lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi, told the Gujarat HC that \u201cvery serious ex-facie vitiatig factors of the trial raise grave apprehensions about the process of trial that led to the conviction.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Singhvi argued that in the case of a public servant or a legislator, \u201cit has very serious additional irreversible consequences – to the person, the constituency, and also drastic consequences of re-election.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The case was listed before Justice Hemant Prachchhak of the Gujarat High Court after Justice Geeta Gopi recused herself from hearing in the case after the Congress leader\u2019s counsel Advocate P S Champaneri mentioned the case before her on April, a day earlier Rahul Gandhi had filed an appeal in the top court against the session court\u2019s verdict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On March 23, Rahul Gandhi was convicted and sentenced to two years imprisonment by a magistrate court in Gujarat\u2019s Surat in a criminal defamation case over his 2019 \u2018Modi surname remark.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The conviction led to his disqualification from the Lok Sabha and losing his MP status under the provisions of the Representation of the People Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The disqualification, which will prevent 52-year-old Gandhi, a four-time MP, from contesting elections for eight years unless a higher court stays the conviction, kicked up a political storm in the country with the Congress staging a countrywide Satyagraha last month to protest the decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Congress top brass, including party president Mallikarjun Kharge, vowed to fight Rahul Gandhi\u2019s disqualification in every court of law in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, a sessions court in Surat refused to grant relief to the former Wayanad MP as it dismissed his plea seeking a stay on his conviction in the defamation case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On April 20, dismissing the plea, additional sessions judge RP Mogera noted that the Gandhi scion had failed to demonstrate that \u201cany irreversible and irrevocable damage will be caused to him if the conviction wasn\u2019t stayed and if he was denied the opportunity to contest elections.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Gujarat High Court on Saturday said it will continue hearing on May 2, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi\u2019s plea challenging the Surat sessions court\u2019s order that refused to stay his conviction in the criminal defamation case over the 2019 \u201cModi surname\u201d remark. Rahul Gandhi\u2019s counsel, Senior lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi, told the Gujarat HC that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":458802,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Gujarat HC to hear Rahul Gandhi's plea against conviction in defamation case on May 2","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1497,125714],"tags":[156700],"yst_prominent_words":[3813,41569,20997,15401,38719,3814,44279,4504,8086,4030,29806,5956,5951,33438],"ppma_author":[140543],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/d2r2ijn7njrktv.cloudfront.net\/apnlive\/uploads\/2023\/03\/24142611\/Rahul-Gandhi-disqualified.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":140543,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"apnnewsdesk","display_name":"APN Live","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/478eacb893eda88aa6ed8d99b005bf58?s=96&r=g"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468423"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/458802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468423"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=468423"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=468423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}