India’s top court on Friday stayed the criminal defamation conviction of opposition leader Rahul Gandhi for mocking the prime ministers surname. His party said it would now seek to have Gandhi reinstated as a member of parliament.
A fierce critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his main challenger in 2024 polls, Gandhi was ousted from Parliament after his conviction by a magistrate’s court in March.
The stay by the Supreme Court means a temporary halt to the conviction while the court goes into Gandhi’s appeal in detail before issuing a final ruling.
Gandhi’s disqualification as a lawmaker also now remains in abeyance, said Live Law, an online portal for Indian legal news. Congress party leader K.C. Venugopal said the party would approach the Parliament speaker to restore his seat.
Despite its decision, the Supreme Court observed that Gandhi's comments were not in “good taste” and said that a person in public life ought to have been more careful while making public speeches.
The defamation case involved comments Gandhi made in a 2019 election speech. Gandhi asked, “Why do all thieves have Modi as their surname?” He then referred to three well-known and unrelated Modis: a fugitive Indian diamond tycoon, a cricket executive banned from the Indian Premier League and the prime minister.
The case was filed by Purnesh Modi, who is a member of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party in Gujarat state but is also not related to the prime minister.
Gandhi was sentenced to two years in prison but the court suspended his prison sentence in April. The conviction was upheld by the Gujarat state High Court so he filed an appeal in the country’s Supreme Court last month.
The Supreme Court said the trial judge gave the maximum sentence of two years to Gandhi. Except for the admonition to Gandhi, no other reason was given for that sentence, the court said.
Gandhi on Wednesday reiterated in an affidavit before the Supreme Court that he is not guilty of the offense of criminal defamation. He said he will not apologize for his remark and that if he wanted he could have made it much earlier.
Gandhi also said that there is no community going by the name ‘Modi’ and so he cannot be accused of defaming Modi community as a whole. People having the surname Modi may fall into different communities and castes, he said.
Purnesh Modi said in his counter affidavit that Gandhi has shown arrogance rather than being apologetic.
