Congress fumes as Gujarat HC mentions ‘Savarkar’ issue in Modi surname case: ‘How is this relevant’

The Congress party on Friday said that the Gujarat high court's refusal to stay Rahul Gandhi's conviction in the Modi surname remark case is disappointing but not unexpected. Congress leader and senior lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi said that the legal jurisprudence from Gujarat high court and session court has no parallel in the law.

“This is a disappointing and not an unexpected judgment. The jurisprudence found in this judgment is unique and extraordinary. For want of a better word, I will say it has no parallel or precedent in the jurisprudence of the law of defamation,” Singhi told a press conference.

The Gujarat High Court on Friday dismissed Gandhi's plea seeking a stay on his conviction in the criminal defamation case over his "Modi surname" remark. While dismissing Rahul Gandhi's plea, Justice Hemant Prachchhak noted that the Congress leader is already facing 10 cases across India, adding the order of the lower court was "just, proper and legal" in convicting the Congress leader.

The court noted that there is no reasonable ground to stay the conviction.

In 2019, Rahul Gandhi, at an election rally in Karnataka's Kolar had asked “Why all the thieves, be it Nirav Modi, Lalit Modi or Narendra Modi, have Modi as the common surname?”

A metropolitan magistrate's court in Surat on March 23 had sentenced Gandhi to two years in jail after convicting him under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 499 and 500 (criminal defamation) in a 2019 case filed by BJP Gujarat MLA Purnesh Modi.

Singhi said it is nearly impossible to show how the entire community has been offended and defamed.

“There is no previous example that the entire community has been defamed and conviction has not been stayed. It is very clear that it is an orchestrated effort against Rahul Gandhi,” he added.

Singhvi also expressed surprise and astonishment over the judge's reference to other criminal cases filed against Rahul Gandhi, including one filed by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar's grandson.

"How is this relevant in the slightest? At the end of the arguments, a cutting was handed over by the complainant’s counsel of a case filed on April 12th, 2023 post the conviction by the Trial Court on March 23rd, 2023. The cutting is neither pleaded nor otherwise argued. Yet this becomes a major basis of appeal," he said.

What the single-bench judge said on ‘Savarkar’ issue

"He (Gandhi) was trying to stay the conviction on absolutely non-existent grounds. It is a well-settled principle of law that staying of conviction is not a rule, but an exception, resorted only in rare cases. Disqualification is not only limited to MP, MLAs. Moreover, as many as 10 criminal cases are pending against the applicant," the HC said.

"After this complaint, another complaint was filed in a court in Pune by the grandson of Veer Savarkar for Gandhi's defamatory utterance against Veer Savarkar at Cambridge. Another complaint against him was filed in the concerned court of Lucknow," it said. In this backdrop, refusal of stay on conviction would not in any way result in injustice to the applicant, the judge said.

Free Speech issue

Singhvi warned that the Gujarat high court's ruling impacts every single person, calling the case an important legal battle regardless of the personalities involved.

"It is, in effect, a battle to limit the arena of free speech. To dictate what can and cannot be said. To state from on high, that free speech is what we find harmless not the law. Tomorrow, a story by a journalist will be called defamatory because one individual claims, without the slightest bit of proof, that an entire amorphous community has been offended," he said.