Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s trial proceedings in a defamation case filed against him by senior BJP leader and former Bihar Chief Minister Sushil Modi have been stayed by the Patna High Court. The defamation suit was filed against Gandhi over his alleged slanderous remarks against those having the surname ‘Modi’. Gandhi had contended that since he has already been convicted in a similar case by a Gujarat court, he cannot be put on trial for the same offense again.
‘The high court has stayed trial proceedings till May 15, the date on which we will be submitting our reply to the petition,’ said S D Sanjay, the counsel for Sushil Kumar Modi. Modi had filed the defamation suit against Gandhi a few days after the latter gave the infamous speech at an election rally in Karnataka, during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
It is noteworthy that the MP/MLA court in Patna had recently asked Gandhi to appear in connection with the petition on April 25. In a separate case, Gandhi was awarded two years in prison by a court in Surat, where BJP MLA Purnesh Modi had sued him for defamation for having made a snide remark against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, fugitive defaulter Nirav Modi, and former IPL commissioner Lalit Modi. The sentence awarded by the Surat court has also led to the disqualification of Gandhi, who represented Kerala’s Wayanad seat in the Lok Sabha.
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