New Delhi: This is Rahul Gandhi’s last chance to get acquittal in order to attend the Parliament and contest elections, his lawyer argued in the Supreme Court on Friday in the defamation case against the Congress leader over his ‘Modi-thieves’ remark.
A Supreme Court bench comprising Justices B R Gavai, P S Narasimha, and Sanjay Kumar was hearing Rahul Gandhi’s plea for stay on his conviction. The Gujarat High Court had earlier refused to stay his conviction in the criminal defamation case.
The High Court had reserved its judgement for 66 days, and due to conviction in the case, Gandhi has already lost two Parliament sessions, his lawyer said. Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, representing Rahul Gandhi, said the trial has been completed, and Gandhi has even been convicted, yet there is no evidence so far.
Singhvi said this is the first time 30 crore people have held to be an identifiable class. “They are amorphous, non homogenous…communities, castes, and groups with appellation ‘Modi’ are totally different,” he said.
Justice Gavai had at the beginning of the hearing said Gandhi will have to make out an exceptional case for a stay on conviction, to which Singhvi said he was not arguing conviction today. Singhvi argued the complainant Purnesh Modi’s original surname is not Modi, and he had changed it.
“The complainant Purnesh Modi himself said that his original surname was not Modi. He belongs to Modh Vanika Samaj,” he argued, and claimed not a single of the persons Gandhi had named during his speech have sued him.
“Interestingly, everybody who is aggrieved in this very ‘small’ community of 13 crores, the only people suing are BJP office-holders. Very strange,” Singhvi said.
The Supreme Court then pointed out that the trial court has also spoken about Gandhi’s criminal antecedents. “They have cited 13 cases but no conviction in any of those cases. How are these cited for criminal antecedents? I am not a hardened criminal…No conviction despite…look at the chart. Full of cases filed by BJP karyakartas, but never any conviction,” Singhvi responded.
Advocate Sanghvi then pointed out that the High Court treats this as a serious offence involving a moral turpitude. “Not a single material of moral turpitude. Not a single judgement. This is non-cognisable, bailable, and compoundable. Not against society, not kidnapping, rape, murder…maximum sentence of 2 yrs…How can this become an offence involving moral turpitude?” he said.
