'Modi surname' case: Gujarat HC verdict on Rahul Gandhi's plea against conviction on Friday

The Gujarat High Court will pronounce its judgment on former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi's plea seeking a stay on his conviction in the defamation case over Modi's surname remark on Friday. The court of Justice Hemant Prachchhak will deliver the verdict at 11:00 am.

In May, Justice Prachchhak, while hearing Gandhi's plea, had refused to grant any interim relief saying the court will pass a final order after the summer vacation, which ended three weeks back. 

During a hearing on April 29, Gandhi's lawyer had argued that a maximum punishment of two years for a bailable, non-cognisable offence meant his client could lose his Lok Sabha seat "permanently and irreversibly", which was a "very serious additional irreversible consequence to the person and the constituency he represents".

Earlier in March, a metropolitan magistrate's court in Surat sentenced Gandhi to two years in jail after convicting him under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 499 and 500 (criminal defamation) in a 2019 case filed by Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Gujarat MLA Purnesh Modi.

Following the verdict, Gandhi, elected to the Lok Sabha from Wayanad in Kerala in 2019, was disqualified as a Member of Parliament under the provisions of the Representation of the People Act. He challenged the order in a sessions court in Surat along with an application seeking a stay to the conviction. While granting him bail, the court on April 20 refused to stay the conviction.

Purnesh Modi filed a criminal defamation case against Gandhi over his ‘How come all thieves have Modi as the common surname?’ remark made during an election rally at Kolar in Karnataka on April 13, 2019.

A stay to the conviction could pave the way for Gandhi’s reinstatement as a Member of Parliament. 

Earlier this week, the Jharkhand High Court ordered that no coercive action should be taken against Gandhi in a defamation case filed against him over the Modi surname remark. Advocate Pradeep Modi, who practices in Ranchi, had taken exception to the Gandhi scion's remark "against Modi community" and filed a Rs 20 crore defamation case against him. 

The Congress MP's counsel had filed a criminal writ petition in the Jharkhand High Court to exempt him from personal appearance in the defamation case in an MP-MLA court in Ranchi. The same petition was already rejected by the MP-MLA court.

(With inputs from PTI)