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In his appeal, the congress leader has contended that the entire approach of the High Court has been to mischaracterize his one-line statement as 'very serious' and the "order has no parallel or precedent in the jurisprudence of the law of defamation in India".
The Supreme Court today agreed to hear Congress Leader Rahul Gandhi's plea challenging the Gujarat High Court's recent refusal to stay his conviction in the 2019 criminal defamation case over his Modi surname remark on Friday, July 21.
Senior Advocate AM Singhvi mentioned the plea by Gandhi seeking listing of his plea on Friday or Monday.
A bench of CJI DY Chandrachud, Justice PS Narasimha and Justice Manoj Misra agreed to list the same on coming Friday after inquiring if the list for that day was prepared or not.
Gandhi had approached the top court on July 15 after a single judge bench of Justice Hemant Prachchhak had tabled the verdict in the 'Modi' surname remark case upholding his conviction.
Notably, the same day, the high court had denied relief to the Congress leader, expecting an appeal from Gandhi against the High Court's decision, the complainant, Purnesh Modi had filed a caveat in the Supreme Court of India.
In view of Gandhi's conduct and other pending cases against him, Justice Prachchhak had opined that the conviction in the present case would not do any injustice to him.
"Absolute non-existent grounds...Well settled law that stay on conviction is not a rule but rather an exception...Moreover, as many as ten criminal cases are pending against the applicant. It is now the need of the hour to have purity in politics...After the complaint in the present case, another complaint was filed at Pune by the grandson of Veer Savarkar against the applicant for using repremational terms against Savarkar...In the backdrop of the said circumstances, refusal to stay the conviction would not in any way result in any injustice to the applicant," held the judge.
In 2019, Gandhi in a poll rally at Kolar in Karnataka, said, “How come all thieves have Modi as the common surname”. Thereafter, a defamation case was filed against Gandhi by Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) MLA and former Gujarat Minister Purnesh Modi, under Sections 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code.
On March 23, 2023, the Congress leader who was then a parliamentarian from Wayanad, Kerala, was convicted by Surat District Court and sentenced to two years in jail. This conviction led to Gandhi's disqualification from his membership in Lok Sabha.
Case Title: Rahul Gandhi vs. Purnesh Ishwarbhai Modi
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