Rahul Gandhi gets bail in defamation case

Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday appeared in a special MP-MLA court here in connection with a defamation case.

The court granted bail to the Congress MP on two bonds of Rs 20,000 each. After Rahul’s surrender, his lawyer moved an application seeking bail for the Congress leader. The court immediately accepted it.

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Gandhi reached the court of Special Judicial Magistrate Alok Verma directly at Kaiserbagh.

The court had directed him to appear in front of it over his remarks on the Indian Army. Rahul did not appear in the last five hearings after which the court had issued summons for his appearance.

Gandhi’s lawyer Pranshu Agarwal had sought exemption from Rahul’s appearance but the court refused to oblige.

The Gandhi scion was accompanied by UP Congress in-charge Avinash Pandey, Rajya Sabha MP Pramod Tiwari; and MLA Aradhana Mishra. They also had heated arguments with the police.They later walked down to the courtroom.

Rahul is also likely to visit the house of astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla. However, there is no official information about this.

Earlier, Rahul Gandhi’s lawyer Pranshu Agarwal argued that a special leave petition (SLP) has been filed in the Supreme Court against the summons. Therefore, exemption should be given from appearance on July 15. At the same time, plaintiff Uday Shankar’s lawyer Vivek Tiwari insisted that the trial court proceedings do not stop just by filing SLP. After hearing both the parties, the court had given clear instructions that now Rahul Gandhi will have to appear in court personally on July 15.

To dismiss this petition, Rahul Gandhi had knocked the door of the Lucknow Bench of Allahabad High Court but on June 29, the High Court rejected Rahul Gandhi’s petition. Also, the proceedings of the trial court were declared legal. But even after this, Rahul Gandhi did not appear in the court so far.

It may be mentioned that former director of Border Road Organization (BRO) Uday Shankar Srivastava had filed a case against Rahul in the CJM court on February 11. He alleged that Rahul had made derogatory comments in Lucknow on December 16, 2022, days after a face-off between Indian and Chinese troops in Arunachal Pradesh.

Rahul had said, “People will ask about Bharat Jodo Yatra….but they will not ask a single question about China capturing 2000 sq km of Indian land, killing 20 Indian soldiers, and thrashing our soldiers in Arunachal Pradesh… Don’t pretend people don’t know.”

Srivastava called the remarks “false and baseless”, made with an “evil intention of demoralising the Indian Army and damaging public faith”. He cited the Army’s official December 12 statement, which described the Dec 9 clash in Arunachal Pradesh as involving ” minor injuries to a few personnel from both sides”.