Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was granted bail by a special court on Friday in a defamation case filed by the BJP’s Karnataka unit over “defamatory” advertisements published in mainstream newspapers.
Earlier, the court had granted bail to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar, who also appeared in connection with the case. Judge K.N. Shivakumar had directed Gandhi to appear before the court on June 7.
In February, Gandhi attended court proceedings related to the defamation case and was granted bail. The complaint was filed by BJP leader Vijay Mishra, leading to a warrant issued against Gandhi in December. This prompted Gandhi to pause his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in Amethi and appear in court on February 20, where he obtained bail.
The complaint originated from Gandhi’s remarks during a press conference in Bengaluru in May 2018, where he criticized the BJP for claiming to uphold honest politics while having a party president accused in a murder case. At the time, Amit Shah was the BJP president, having been acquitted by a special CBI court in Mumbai four years earlier in a 2005 fake encounter case during his tenure as Minister of State for Home in Gujarat.
