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India’s opposition Congress social gathering chief Rahul Gandhi and his sister and social gathering chief Priyanka Vadra, left, greet media personnel as they arrive at social gathering headquarters in New Delhi, India, Aug. 4, 2023.
Credit score: AP Picture/Dinesh Joshi
India’s prime court docket on Friday briefly halted the prison defamation conviction of opposition chief Rahul Gandhi for mocking the prime minister’s surname. His social gathering mentioned it will now search to have Gandhi reinstated as a member of parliament.
A fierce critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his foremost challenger within the 2024 polls, Gandhi was ousted from Parliament after his conviction by a Justice of the Peace’s court docket in March.
The Supreme Courtroom stayed the conviction, which implies it’s briefly halted whereas the court docket goes into Gandhi’s attraction intimately earlier than issuing a last ruling.
Gandhi’s disqualification as a lawmaker additionally now stays in abeyance, mentioned Dwell Legislation, a web-based portal for Indian authorized information. Congress social gathering chief Okay.C. Venugopal mentioned the social gathering would strategy the Parliament speaker to revive his seat.
The court docket’s order additionally implies that Gandhi will be capable to contest subsequent 12 months’s basic elections except a last court docket determination goes in opposition to him.
Scores of his elated supporters danced to drumbeats and exchanged sweets as Gandhi briefly greeted them on the social gathering headquarters in New Delhi. “Reality prevails finally,” Gandhi informed reporters.
Gandhi’s social gathering president, Mallikarjun Kharge, mentioned it was “time for them [Modi and his party leaders] to cease their malicious concentrating on of opposition leaders.”
The ruling social gathering’s “conspiratorial hounding of Gandhi has been completely uncovered,” Kharge mentioned.
Regardless of its determination, the Supreme Courtroom famous that Gandhi’s feedback weren’t in “good style” and {that a} public determine should have been extra cautious whereas making public speeches.
The defamation case concerned feedback Gandhi made in a 2019 election speech. Gandhi requested, “Why do all thieves have Modi as their surname?” He then referred to 3 well-known and unrelated Modis: a fugitive Indian diamond tycoon, a cricket govt banned from the Indian Premier League, and the prime minister.
The case was filed by Purnesh Modi, who’s a member of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Social gathering in Gujarat state however can be not associated to the prime minister.
Gandhi was sentenced to 2 years in jail however the court docket suspended his jail sentence in April. The conviction was upheld by the Gujarat state Excessive Courtroom so he filed an attraction within the nation’s Supreme Courtroom final month.
The Supreme Courtroom mentioned the trial choose gave the utmost sentence of two years to Gandhi. Apart from the admonition to Gandhi, no different cause was given for that sentence, the court docket mentioned.
The case in opposition to Gandhi, the great-grandson of Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister and scion of the dynastic Congress social gathering, was broadly condemned by opponents of Modi as the newest assault in opposition to democracy and free speech by a authorities looking for to crush dissent. The velocity of his elimination from Parliament shocked Indian politics.
Authorized consultants had earlier mentioned Gandhi’s case is uncommon as defamation convictions stay uncommon, particularly with the utmost sentence.
Gandhi on Wednesday reiterated in an affidavit earlier than the Supreme Courtroom that he’s not responsible of the offense of prison defamation. He mentioned he won’t apologize for his comment and that if he wished he may have made it a lot earlier.
Gandhi additionally mentioned that there isn’t a neighborhood going by the title “Modi” and so he can’t be accused of defaming Modi neighborhood as an entire. Folks having the surname Modi might fall into completely different communities and castes, he mentioned.
Purnesh Modi mentioned in his counter affidavit that Gandhi has proven vanity fairly than being apologetic.
India, with 1.4 billion folks, is the world’s largest democracy. Nevertheless, Modi’s critics say democracy has been in retreat since he got here to energy in 2014. They accuse his authorities of pursuing a Hindu nationalist agenda. The federal government denies that, saying its insurance policies profit all Indians.
The Nehru-Gandhi household has produced three prime ministers. Rahul Gandhi’s grandmother, Indira Gandhi, was assassinated whereas in workplace, as was his father, Rajiv Gandhi, after he left workplace.
Related Press author Krutika Pathi in New Delhi contributed to this report.
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