Dikhyaa Mohanty 
The judgement in a criminal defamation case involving Congressman Rahul Gandhi has been reserved by the Asurat Sessions Court and will now be delivered on April 20, according to ‘Bar and Bench’. Rahul Gandhi’s attorney claimed in court that Rahul Gandhi would suffer “irreparable loss and irreversible injury” if he were barred from the Lok Sabha following his conviction in a criminal defamation case involving the Modi surname. Rahul Gandhi’s attorney, senior attorney R.S. Cheema, argued that the conviction for ‘imagined’ defamation was unreasonable because only an injured party could submit a complaint.
Rahul Gandhi’s statement, according to Cheema, wasn’t defamatory until it was exaggerated and taken out of context. Purnesh Modi, a Surat West BJP MLA, was the complaint, and he also pointed out that the speech was delivered in Kolar, in the state of Karnataka, while the complainant was receiving messages on his WhatsApp in Surat. Rahul Gandhi was found guilty and given a two-year sentence, which has been postponed while the courts consider his appeal, according to the senior attorney.
Rahul Gandhi’s request for a stay of execution was met by a response from Purnesh Modi, who referred to it as a “dirty display of childish arrogance”. Rahul Gandhi, according to him, had already broken the law, and his presence in court alongside a number of Congressmen was “a very filthy display of childish arrogance and an immature act of bringing pressure upon the court,” he added. Judge Robin Mogera deferred her decision about the case after hearing the arguments. The new date for the order is April 20. Rahul Gandhi was expelled from the Lok Sabha on March 25 as a result of his criminal defamation case conviction. Additionally, the Wayanad seat in Kerala had been declared vacant by the Lok Sabha Secretariat.
Rahul Gandhi was found guilty on March 24 and given a two-year prison term in a 2019 criminal defamation case over his comments on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s last name. However, the Congress leader was given bail and a 30-day sentence suspension so that he may challenge the Surat court’s decision. Purnesh Modi brought the lawsuit against Rahul Gandhi after he remarked, “How come all thieves have the common surname Modi” during a campaign stop in Karnataka for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
