The Supreme Court on Monday stayed trial court proceedings against Congress leader and Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi in a criminal defamation case filed against him for alleged defamatory remarks against Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
The complaint was filed by a BJP worker, Naveen Jha, in 2019. Gandhi had allegedly referred to Shah as a “murderer” during one of his public speeches in Chaibasa ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Gandhi has challenged the Jharkhand High Court order, which rejected his petition to quash proceedings against him in a trial court in connection with the complaint.
A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta issued notice to the Jharkhand government and the BJP leader while seeking their response to Gandhi’s appeal.
“The speech made by Rahul Gandhi has imputed the Bhartiya Janata Party leadership to be liars who are drunk with power and that the Bhartiya Janata Party workers will accept a person accused of murder as the president of Bhartiya Janata Party but people will never accept the same in the congress party. Prima facie this statement points out that Mr. Rahul Gandhi has imputed that the Bhartiya Janata Party leadership was drunk with power and was composed of liars,” the High Court said as per Live Law.
FIR Against Rahul In Assam
An FIR has been registered against him at Pan Bazar Police Station in Guwahati, Assam, for his recent remark about the ‘Indian State.’
The Congress MP, while speaking at the inauguration of the Congress Party’s new headquarters in Delhi on January 15, raised questions about the transparency in the electoral process, referring to the assembly elections and said, “We are now fighting the BJP, the RSS, and the Indian State itself.”
