What happened yesterday at the Gujarat High Court was a major setback for Rahul Gandhi as it refused to stay his conviction by a sessions court in Surat in the defamation case filed against him over his "Modi surname" remark made during a political rally in Karnataka in 2019.

Rejecting Gandhi's plea for a stay, Justice H M Prachchhak noted various criminal defamation cases pending against Gandhi.

"As many as 10 criminal cases are pending against the applicant. It is now the need of the hour to have purity in politics. Representatives of the people should be men of clear antecedents," the judge observed.

The judge cited the defamation plaint filed against Gandhi by the grandson of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, a prominent Indian independence activist and key proponent of the Hindutva ideology. "...one complaint was filed by the grandson of Veer Savarkar in Pune when the accused used defamatory utterances against Veer Savarkar at Cambridge and another complaint was filed in Lucknow," the HC order reads.

The judge rejected Gandhi's argument that if the conviction were not stayed, his disqualification from the Lok Sabha would continue. On this the judge said, "Disqualification is not limited only to MPs/MLAs."

The HC rejected Gandhi's contention that the offence was not of a serious nature, saying, "The present conviction is a serious matter affecting a large segment of society and needs to be viewed by this court with the gravity and significance it commands."

The court further said that the defamation alleged was against a large identifiable class and not just an individual and hence "the conviction partakes the character of an offence affecting a large section of the public and by definition, society at large and not just an individual-centric defamation case".

The judge also said that Gandhi belongs to the oldest political party in India and "being a public personality, he is vested with the duty to exercise the vast power at his disposal with caution, ensuring the dignity and reputation of a large number of persons or any identifiable class is not jeopardized due to his political activities or utterances".

Source: TimesofIndia