On Friday, The Supreme Court stayed the conviction of Congress leader and former Member of Parliament (MP) Rahul Gandhi in the criminal defamation case over the “why all thieves have Modi surname” remark. With the stay of his conviction, Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification as MP also now remains in abeyance.
Particularly when the offense was non-compoundable, bailable, and cognizable, the least which was expected from the learned trial judge was to give reasons for imposing the maximum punishment. Though the learned appellate court and the High Court have spent voluminous pages rejecting the applications, these aspects are not seen considered.
At the same time, the bench observed that the utterances of Rahul Gandhi were not in ‘good taste’ and said that a person in public life ought to have been more careful while making public speeches.
Considering the wide ramifications of Section 8(3) affecting not only the right of the petitioner but also the rights of the electorate which elected him in the constituency and also the fact that no reason has been assigned by the trial court to award the maximum sentence, the bench said that it is staying the conviction.
The bench refrained from making any observations on the merits of the matter considering the pendency of the appeal.
In his latest affidavit, Gandhi replied that the complainant was leveraging the criminal process and the provisions of the Representation of the People Act to arm-twist the petitioner into apologizing for no fault of his.
The affidavit states, “The petitioner maintains and has always maintained that he is not guilty of an offense and that the conviction is unsustainable and if he had to apologize and compound the offense, he would have done it much earlier”
