The Congress party will be challenging the order of the Surat court which on Thursday rejected Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s application for a stay on his conviction in a criminal defamation case over his “Modi surname” remark.
Senior Congress leader and party spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi, while addressing the media in Delhi, termed the Surat court order as a “wrong decision has been reaffirmed”.
“The point is simple, a most unfortunate and unsustainable legal decision of the magistrate has been upheld in an even more erroneous judgement of the sessions court given today. The conviction has been upheld contrary to all basic and elementary principles of law. We will appeal to the Supreme Court and explore all other legal possibilities,” Singhvi, who is also a senior lawyer, told reporters.
While responding to a query, he said that he was confident that the superior courts will set right the legal errors in the Surat court order.
“We are confident that superior courts with the constitutional power of judicial review, namely High Court and Supreme Court will set right the legal errors found in this judgement,” he said.
As per Congress leaders, the sessions court has set 20 May as the date to begin hearing Rahul Gandhi’s appeal against the lower court’s that was delivered on 23 March.
According to Singhvi, the judgment was devoid of ‘valid and sustainable legal reasoning’
“The one-line remark of Rahul Gandhi in a two-and-a-half-page long speech has been from inception completely distorted out of recognition to serve narrow ends of motivated complainants. The BJP’s speed and zeal to act after the original order depicts that they are motivated by political animosity. Their misleading statements about the OBC community have backfired on them. And the whole community sees the BJP as mis-utilising and encashing the OBC community for narrow political gains,” he said.
“Rahul Gandhi has not spoken anything remotely defamatory in this case, he will continue to speak for the people,” Singhvi added.
During a political rally in 2019 in Karnataka, Gandhi had referred to two fugitive businessmen (Lalit Modi and Nirav Modi), both surnamed Modi and asked the people as to “How come all thieves have the name Modi?” in what was perceived as a political comment on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The defamation case against Gandhi was filed by Purnesh Modi, a BJP legislator in the Gujarat state assembly.