After a Gujarat court rejected Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s application for a stay on his conviction in a criminal defamation case that has led to his disqualification as a Member of the Lok Sabha, the Congress on Thursday said it will continue to avail all options available under the law and move the high court.
A Surat court rejected Rahul’s plea for a stay on his conviction in a criminal defamation case over his “Modi surname” remark, holding that the Congress leader should have been “more careful with his words” since he was a Member of Parliament and the then president of the country’s second largest political party.
Denying the disqualified MP relief that could have paved the way for his reinstatement in the Lok Sabha, additional sessions judge RP Mogera observed that a “high standard of morality” is expected from a person like Rahul, adding that the trial court had imposed a sentence which was permissible in law.
It also observed that the Congress leader’s removal or disqualification as MP under section 8(3) of Representation of the People Act, 1951 “cannot be termed as irreversible or irreparable loss or damage”.
The former Congress chief who will continue to remain out on bail, stood disqualified from contesting Lok Sabha and Assembly elections for a period of eight years unless a higher court stays his conviction.
Dismissing Rahul’s application against the Surat trial court order on March 23, the sessions court said the power accorded under section 389 (1) of the CrPC to suspend/stay the conviction is required to be exercised “with caution and circumspection” as observed by the Supreme Court in a number of pronouncements.
“If such power is exercised in a casual and mechanical manner, the same would have serious impact on the public perception on the justice delivery systems and such order will shake public confidence in judiciary,” the court said in its 27-page order that triggered a fresh slugfest between the Congress and the BJP ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Rahul’s lawyer Kirit Panwala said the sessions court has set May 20 as the date to begin hearing on his appeal against the trial court order. He said the Congress leader will continue to remain out on bail till the disposal of his main appeal as per the session court’s April 3 order.
Congress termed as “erroneous and unsustainable” the court order and said the judge seems to be “over-shadowed” by the high office of the Prime Minister.
Senior Supreme Court lawyer and a Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said they would be moving the High Court “very shortly” as the judgement is “fallacious” and is contrary to all basic elementary principles of law. Sources said that Singhvi, himself a noted lawyer, is likely to appear before the Gujarat High Court.
“There is a legal error in the judgement. We respect all courts and we have the High Court and Supreme Court. We have several grounds to challenge the judgement. We will move the high court in the very near future,” Singhvi briefed the media at AICC Press conference post the court order.
“A most unfortunate and unsustainable legal decision of the magistrate has been upheld in an even more unsustainable and erroneous judgement of the Sessions court given today. The conviction has been upheld contrary to all basic elementary principles of law,” Singhvi said at AICC Press conference after the order by court.
“Let me assure you that the judgement will be challenged in accordance with law in the very near future,” he said.
Arguing that the judgement is “wrong” with no legal standing, Congress said the court has noted that Prime Minister Modi has been defamed along with 13 crore others with the Modi surname, which shows that the judge is “over-shadowed” by the exalted office of the Prime Minister.
“Clearly, unfortunately the judgement is influenced by the high office of the Prime Minister, forgetting that the honourable Prime Minister is not the complainant,” Singhvi said.
“We are confident that superior courts with Constitutional power of judicial review, namely the High Court and the Supreme Court, have the power and will set right the legal errors found in these two judgements. We are clear that the judgement in devoid of valid sustainable legal reasoning,” he said.
Singhvi said the one-line remark of Rahul in a two-and-a-half page speech “has been from inception distorted completely out of recognition to serve the narrow ends of motivated complainants, that has been hardly interpreted in the sessions court judgement and what little has been said is a complete distortion, legally erroneous”. Rahul had on April 3 approached the sessions court for appeal against the lower court’s order.
Their completely misleading and displaced statements about the OBCs have backfired on them and the entire community and the whole of India now see the BJP as using the OBC community for narrow and cheap political games, he said