'Rahul Gandhi should apologise to OBC community', says BJP after setback to Congress leader in Modi surname case

The BJP on Friday said that “Rahul Gandhi should apologise to the OBC community” after the Gujarat High Court dismissed his plea seeking stay on his conviction in the Modi surname defamation case. “Congress party and Rahul Gandhi received a shock once again today. After Sessions Court, Gujarat High Court also showed them a mirror,” said BJP leader Shehzad Poonawalla.

#WATCH | BJP leader Shehzad Poonawalla says, "Congress party and Rahul Gandhi received a shock once again today. After Sessions Court, Gujarat High Court also showed them a mirror. They insult the OBC community and then instead of apologising, they act out of arrogance...Rahul… pic.twitter.com/P5OYVUzpiv

— ANI (@ANI) July 7, 2023

He said that the Congress and Rahul Gandhi act out of arrogance and instead of apologising insult the OBC community. “…Rahul Gandhi should apologise to the OBC community but instead of that, either his party workers threaten the judge or Congress party questions the judiciary…,” said the BJP leader. While dismissing Rahul Gandhi’s plea, Justice Hemant Prachchhak noted that Gandhi was already facing 10 criminal cases across India, adding that the order of the lower court was “just, proper and legal” in handing over a two year jail term to Gandhi for his remarks. There was no reasonable ground to stay the conviction, the high court said. After the verdict, the Congress party said it would challenge the high court order in the Supreme Court. A stay on Gandhi’s conviction in the case would have paved the way for his reinstatement as a Member of Parliament. “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 High Court 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. “Impugned order passed by the appellate court is just, proper and legal, and does not call for any interference. However, it is hereby requested by the concerned learned district judge to decide the criminal appeal on its own merits and in accordance with law as expeditiously as possible. “In view of the above, the present criminal revision application deserved to be dismissed and accordingly it is dismissed,” the judge while reading the order. While noting that there was no reasonable ground to stay the conviction at this stage, Justice Prachchhak also directed the district and sessions court of Surat to hear Gandhi’s appeal against the conviction “as expeditiously as possible”. Unhappy with the high court’s verdict, Congress Legislative Party leader in Gujarat Assembly, Amit Chavda, told reporters that the party will challenge the high court order in the apex court. A metropolitan magistrate’s court in Surat on 23 March sentenced the former Congress president 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 Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Gujarat MLA Purnesh Modi. With inputs from agencies