The Gujarat High Court has indicated that it is likely to dictate the judgment in Rahul Gandhi’s Revision Plea during the summer vacation.
Justice Hemant Prachchhak has today (Tuesday) indicated that both the parties may end their arguments in a day or two. Justice Hemant Prachchhak is leaving India on May 4.
He indicated that he will dictate the judgment during the summer vacation. This means it may take up to five weeks before the verdict in the Rahul Gandhi case for dismissal of conviction is out.
The Gujarat High Court is hearing the criminal revision plea filed by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi seeking a stay on his conviction in the defamation case over his remark “Why all thieves share the Modi surname” made during a political campaign in 2019.
Senior Advocate Nirupam Nanavaty appeared in the case on behalf of the complainant Purnesh Modi, a former Minister in Gujarat government.
The Gujarat High Court on April 29 began hearing Rahul’s revision application against the Surat sessions court’s April 20 order declining a stay to his conviction for criminal defamation over his ‘Modi surname’ remark.
After a sessions court in Surat refused to stay the March 23 conviction by a magisterial court that sentenced him to the maximum permissible punishment of two years imprisonment, Rahul had moved the HC.
Rahul’s counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi, pleaded for a stay on the conviction in a case that is “neither serious in nature nor of moral turpitude” and is a “non-cognisable and bailable offence”.
On March 23, a magistrate court in Surat found Rahul guilty of criminal defamation under IPC Section 500, and gave him the maximum sentence allowed, which is two years in jail. The decision triggered Section 8(3) of The Representation of the People Act, 1951, which states: “A person convicted of any offence and sentenced to imprisonment for not less than two years shall be disqualified from the date of such conviction and shall continue to be disqualified for a further period of six years since his release.”
Rahul’s appeal for stay on the verdict in the Surat sessions court was dismissed.
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