New Delhi: The Congress on Friday said that the order of the single judge bench of the Gujarat High Court dismissing Rahul Gandhi’s plea seeking a stay on his conviction was ‘disappointing’ but not an ‘unexpected judgement’. Congress on Friday said that they will approach the Supreme Court shortly after the Gujarat High Court upheld Sessions Court’s order denying a stay on conviction of the former Wayanad MP in the defamation case regarding the ‘Modi surname’ remark.
Briefing reporters after the judgement, party spokesperson and MP Dr Abhishek Manu Singhvi and general secretary in charge communications, Jairam Ramesh, said, ‘This jurisprudence that the Courts in question are evolving is, for want of a better word, unique… it has no precedent or parallel with any other judgments ever passed on the subject of defamation laws’. At the same time party reiterated that Rahul Gandhi will continue to fight. ‘We are seeing this cycle of oppression and suppression play out once again. We will fight it. Rahul Gandhi will fight it. And if in the last nine years, we see they always tried to silence his vigilant voice’, Dr Singhvi said.
He added that this government is rattled because he speaks with facts and figures on demonetization, on the Government’s clean chit to China, be it on the struggling economic situation. It is consistent aggression that has compelled the Government to find newer and newer techniques to throttle his voice’. ‘The more they have attempted to silence him (Rahul Gandhi); through harassment by the ED and CBI, the breach of privilege notices, the petty removal of SPG security to the disqualification from Parliament, he remains unmoved. And that is what exposes their fear’, he added. This act of obvious vendetta ‘signifies the systematic, repetitive, emasculation of democratic institutions by the ruling party. It signifies the strangulation of democracy itself’, he said.
‘Today, I show you the extent and degree to which the Government will pursue these acts of suppression’, the senior party leader said.
Dr Singhvi warned it will have greater implications for everyone. ‘Make no mistake: this impacts every single one of you. This is an important legal battle regardless of the personalities involved. It is, in effect, a battle to limit the arena of free speech, to dictate what can and cannot be said’, he warned. Dr Singhvi said, ‘Finally, the ultimate apex court is the court of the ‘Janta’‘. The people see what is happening, how an entire cottage industry has been unleashed against one individual, how it is being done because he is the only leader from the opposition who they cannot break, he said, while referring to vendetta unleashed on Rahul Gandhi by multiple means including the filing of false and frivolous defamation cases.
Questioning the basis of the case against Gandhi, the Congress MP asked, ‘How are the complainants personally defamed’? This is the first condition precedent of the law of defamation, he pointed out, while adding, ‘Second, malice, which is an essential ingredient, is absent’. Dr Singhvi also referred to a gap of 66 days during which the judgement was reserved. ‘The appeal against the Sessions Court’s order was filed on April 25th, 2023. The matter was heard on April 29, and May 2, 2023. On May 2, 2023, the Judgment is reserved for orders. It is pronounced today, July 7th, after 66 days’, he pointed out.
‘Then where have these benches found the malice which has escaped everyone other than the BJP members/ complainants’? he asked adding, that basic questions such as what is the damage or loss suffered by these individuals? have been left unanswered. He said, as he had explained earlier, ‘the law of defamation and how it allows only a defamed person, not an amorphous, undefinable community, to file a case’. Dr Singhvi said, ‘It has become clear now, that that jurisprudence has no bearing on what is happening in Gujarat. The simplest way to prove me wrong is to find a single case, where a conviction has occurred in identical or similar circumstances. Neither of the Courts below have relied on any such judgments. We will wait to see if the High Court has some judicial justification for its conclusion. The reasoning will be for everyone to see’.
Referring to the HC’s order, he said, ‘It surprises me that while in almost every judgment in this matter so far, attention is drawn by the bench to other cases of Rahul Gandhi. In this case no one notes that the complainants in all those cases, just like this one, are BJP leaders, workers or supporters. There is literally no fourth category’. The senior Congress leader said, ‘The question therefore arises that these courts have been quick to point out that Rahulji in those other defamation cases is accused (not convicted, mind you)- and the implication being that such pending cases have a bearing on their decision-but then why do they uniformly fail to take into account that the accusations all seem to be coming from one source’?
He pointed out, at no point, are the bona fide motives of that source ever examined forgotten being addressed. ‘Forget the frivolous and obviously orchestrated nature of these complaints, there is a crystal clear conspiracy and pattern of suppression, all being executed in plain sight by the BJP and its affiliates of throttling the opposition and anyone who dares to criticize this hollow and petrified government’, he said while asking, ‘should not the Courts find this relevant as well’?
Referring to the references by the Single Judge to some other cases, Dr Singhvi said, ‘We were surprised and indeed astonished to find, this morning, a reference by the learned Single Judge of the HC as follows: ‘At least 10 criminal cases pending against him [Rahul Gandhi]. Even after the present case, some more cases filed against him. Grandson of Veer Savarkar files one such’. How is this relevant in the slightest? he asked. He disclosed that at the end of the arguments, a cutting was handed over by the complainant’s counsel of a case filed on April 12th, 2023 post the conviction by the Trial Court on March 23rd, 2023. The cutting is neither pleaded nor otherwise argued. Yet this becomes a major basis of the appeal, he pointed out.
He also referred to the way the complainant got a one-year stay on his own complaint. ‘I will not reiterate the gymnastics that took place at the stage of trial, where the complainant got a one-year stay on his own complaint, and then revived it after there was a change on the bench. And it was that second magistrate, who proceeded to pass that order of conviction. Those are facts, and the facts speak for themselves’, he pointed out.
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