A court in Surat will announce its decision on April 20 regarding a stay on Rahul Gandhi’s conviction in a criminal defamation case. Four years ago, during a poll rally, Gandhi made a comment about the “Modi surname” that resulted in a two-year jail sentence after being found guilty by a metropolitan magistrate’s court. He filed an appeal and requested a stay to the conviction. The complainant in the case, BJP MLA Purnesh Modi, opposed Gandhi’s plea for a stay, stating that the Congress leader was a “repetitive offender.”
During Thursday’s hearing, Gandhi’s lawyer argued that the trial court did not need to award the maximum punishment prescribed for the offense. The lawyer also claimed that the magistrate’s judgment was “strange” since it “made a hotchpotch of all the evidence on record.” He argued that the entire case was based on electronic evidence from a speech made during elections, and a person sitting 100 km away filed a complaint after watching it in the news. The lawyer concluded that there was no need for maximum punishment in this case.
