New Delhi: The Supreme Court has temporarily halted the defamation proceedings against Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, following his alleged defamatory remarks against Union Home Minister Amit Shah. The defamation case was filed by a BJP worker over Gandhi’s statement during a public speech in Chaibasa, Jharkhand, ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, in which he referred to Shah as a "murder accused."
In an interim order passed on Monday, a bench led by Justice Vikram Nath took note of the arguments made on behalf of Rahul Gandhi. His legal team contended that only the aggrieved party, not a third party, could file a criminal defamation complaint.
The Supreme Court bench, also comprising Justice Sandeep Mehta, questioned the legitimacy of a proxy complaint, stating, “If you are not the person aggrieved, how can you have a proxy filing of complaint?”
The court has stayed all proceedings in the trial until further orders and issued notices to both the state of Jharkhand and the complainant.
This development comes after the Jharkhand High Court dismissed Gandhi’s plea to quash the defamation case filed by BJP leader Navin Jha in February last year. Gandhi had alleged that the BJP leadership was “drunk with power” and “liars,” and claimed that BJP workers might accept an accused murderer as the party president, but such a scenario would never be acceptable in Congress. The complaint argued that Gandhi’s statement was not only false but also an insult to BJP workers and leaders who have worked selflessly for the party.
The Jharkhand High Court had previously ruled that Gandhi’s statement was prima facie defamatory, and that a case under sections 499/500 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) had been made out against him for accusing the BJP leadership of lying and being drunk with power.
With IANS inputs