Guj HC order on Rahul Gandhi’s plea seeking stay on conviction in ‘Modi surname’ case tomorrow

livemint.com:

The Gujarat High Court will on Friday, July 7, pronounce the judgment on Rahul Gandhi's plea seeking stay on his conviction in the defamation case over the ‘Modi surname’ remark. The court of Justice Hemant Prachchhak will deliver the verdict in the Modi defamation case at 11:00 am.

If his conviction in the ‘Modi surname’ case is stayed by the Gujarat High Court, it would pave the way for Rahul Gandhi's reinstatement as a Member of Parliament (MP). In May, Justice Prachchhak, during the hearing of Rahul Gandhi's plea, declined to provide interim relief, stating that a final order would be issued after the conclusion of the summer vacation, which ended three weeks ago.

Back in April, during one of the hearings, Rahul Gandhi's lawyer had argued that a maximum punishment of two years for a bailable, non-cognisable offence meant his client could lose his Lok Sabha seat "permanently and irreversibly", which was a "very serious additional irreversible consequence to the person and the constituency he represents". In March 2023, a metropolitan magistrate's court in Surat of Gujarat convicted and sentenced the former Congress president to two years in jail on March 23 after convicting him under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 499 and 500 (criminal defamation) in a 2019 case filed by Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Purnesh Modi.

Following the verdict, Rahul Gandhi, elected to the Lok Sabha from Wayanad in Kerala, was disqualified as MP under the provisions of the Representation of the People Act. Rahul Gandhi challenged the order in a sessions court in Surat along with an application seeking a stay on the conviction.