Rahul Gandhi defamation case: Gujarat HC’s decision ‘disappointing, but not unexpected’, says Congress | India News

NEW DELHI: The Congress on Friday said the Gujarat high court‘s decision to reject Rahul Gandhi’s plea seeking stay in a defamation case was “disappointing, but not unexpected”.
“The jurisprudence found in this judgment is unique and extraordinary. It has no precedent in the jurisprudence of the law of defamation by which the whole country is familiar,” said senior Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi during a press conference.
Core legal issue unanswered: Singhvi
“The core legal issue was how can an legally undefined, amorphous group claim locus and lodge a defamation case.Without answering this core question, the court appears to hold indirectly that any member of this undefined 13-crore-strong group can stand up and say I have been defamed without showing any personal loss or damage and most essentially without showing malice on part of the accused [Rahul Gandhi] … There is no precedent for this type of defamation case,” said Singhvi.

The defamation case was lodged over Rahul Gandhi’s “Modi surname” remark during a rally in Karnataka.
Gandhi had, in his speech linked PM Narendra Modi with fugitives like Nirav Modi and Lalit Modi. He had said: “Nirav Modi, Lalit Modi, Narendra Modi. How come all the thieves have ‘Modi’ as a common surname?”
The BJP claimed his comments had defamed all ‘Modis’ in the country.
A metropolitan magistrate’s court in Surat on March 23 had 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 BJP Gujarat MLA Purnesh Modi. Rahul was later disqualified as a Lok Sabha MP following the conviction.
‘All complainants BJP office bearers’
Singhvi went on to say the malice actually appears to lie with the undefined group, members of which are “filing diverse cases across the country”.
“All the complainants in the diverse cases are office bearers — big, small or medium — in the BJP … Clearly its a orchestrated political campaign … there is a motivated pattern to the cases,” he said.

Alleging that this was not an issue about Rahul Gandhi or Congress, Singhvi said these cases are a “desperate and blatant attempt to throttle free speech”.
“Whether you are a politician or a journalist, the idea is to throttle your free expression and thought,” he added.
“We have full faith in the judiciary and in particular the Supreme Court where we are now proceeding. We have no doubt that this intersection of arrogance and infallibility shown by this government will be dealt with properly in the Supreme Court,” the Congress leader said.
Rahul has always fought for the truth: Kharge
On Friday, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said no party leader or worker was afraid of BJP’s “political conspiracy”.
He alleged that the BJP has used “lies” as part of a political conspiracy to get Rahul Gandhi suspended from Parliament, asserting that the Congress leader has been fighting for truth and will continue his fight.
“Rahul has always fought for the truth, and will continue to fight in the future. The truth is that fugitives like Lalit Modi, Nirav Modi, Mehul “Bhai”, Vijay Mallya, Jatin Mehta, under the supervision of the Modi government fled the country and reached abroad suspiciously after taking public money,” he said.
(With inputs from agencies)