The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice to complainant Purnesh Modi and the State of Gujarat in a petition filed by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi seeking a stay of his conviction in a criminal defamation case.
A Bench led by Justice BR Gavai listed the case for hearing on August 4.
The case relates to Mr. Gandhi’s “Modi” surname remark in a political speech during a rally in Karnataka in 2019.
A request by senior advocate A.M. Singhvi and advocate Prasanna S., appearing for Mr. Gandhi, for an “interim suspension” of the conviction was refused.
Justice Gavai said that cannot be done without hearing the rival side first.
“At this stage, without hearing the other side, how can we...?” Justice Gavai asked.
Mr. Singhvi then pressed for the next “shortest possible date” for the hearing. He highlighted the need for an urgent hearing of the case as 111 days had already passed since Mr. Gandhi’s disqualification from the House. He has already missed one session, and is unable to participate in the ongoing monsoon sitting of the Parliament.
When senior advocate Mahesh Jethmalani objected, Mr. Singhvi said “your client needs to be bothered only about the conviction part and not the disqualification part”.
Mr. Singhvi said the by-elections for the Wayanad constituency may be announced any time. There was a constitutional mandate under Section 151A of the Representation of People Act 1951 to not allow the vacancy of a seat for more than six months.
Mr. Jethmalani said he needed time to file written submissions on “propositions of law and questions of fact” in the case.
The Bench initially scheduled the case within the next 10 days on July 31, but finally fixed the case for hearing on August 4.
“We will take it up on August 4. The question we have to decide is whether the conviction deserves to be suspended or not,” Justice Gavai observed.
Justice Gavai, as soon as the hearing began, informed the lawyers about his family’s history of political association with the Congress party.
Justice Gavai’s father, R.S. Gavai, was an activist, parliamentarian, Governor and the founder of the Republican Party of India (Gavai). His brother, Rajendra Gavai, is a politician.
“My father was associated, though not a Congress member... but closely associated.. Mr Singhvi, you know he was associated with the Congress for more than 40 years and my brother is still in politics and he is in Congress… Please take a call if you want me to hear this,” Justice Gavai addressed Mr. Jethmalani and Mr. Singhvi.
Both sides told Justice Gavai to not recuse.
Mr. Singhvi said it was a sign of the times that “these kinds of things should be raked up”.
“I am only doing my duty. I have to disclose this so there is no problem later on. I have been on the Bench for 20 years. These things have never affected my judgment,” Justice Gavai said.
In fact, on a lighter note, Justice Gavai said his father was fellow parliamentarian and good friends with the fathers of both Mr. Singhvi and Mr. Jethmalani.
In his petition, Mr. Gandhi contended that the lower courts had branded his political speech critical of economic offenders and also of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, made in the course of democratic political activity, as an act of “moral turpitude”.
“A political speech in the course of democratic political activity, critical of economic offenders, and also of Shri Narendra Modi, has been held to be an act of moral turpitude inviting the harshest punishment. Such a finding is gravely detrimental to democratic free speech in the midst of a political campaign. It is respectfully submitted that the same will set a disastrous precedent wiping out any form of political dialogue or debate which is remotely critical in any manner,” the petition has argued.
He argued that the conviction and two-year sentence, the maximum punishment in defamation law, would result in the “inexorable exclusion of the petitioner from all political elective office for a long period of eight years”.
Challenging the July 7 Gujarat High Court decision which upheld his conviction, Mr. Gandhi asked how an “undefined amorphous group” could possibly be defamed in the first place.
