Court order on Rahul's defamation plea on April 20

Surat: A sessions court here on Thursday said it would pronounce on April 20 the order on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's plea for a stay to his conviction in a criminal defamation case over his "Modi surname" remark, made exactly four years ago during a poll rally. After hearing arguments from both sides, additional sessions judge R P Mogera said he will pronounce the order on April 20.

A metropolitan magistrate's court in Surat had on March 23 sentenced the Congress leader to two years in jail after holding him guilty for his remark "how come all thieves have Modi as the common surname", made during an election rally in 2019. Gandhi, who was disqualified as Member of Parliament after the conviction, filed an appeal before the sessions court here against the verdict.

He also prayed for a stay to the conviction in the meantime. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Purnesh Modi, the complainant in the case, opposed Gandhi's plea for a stay in his reply, saying the Congress leader was a "repetitive offender".

On Thursday, Gandhi's lawyer senior advocate R S Cheema told sessions judge R P Mogera that the trial court need not have awarded the maximum punishment prescribed for the offence. The magistrate's judgement was "strange" as he "made a hotchpotch of all the evidence on record", Cheema argued. "It was not a fair trial. The entire case was based on electronic evidence, wherein I made a speech during elections and a person sitting 100 km away filed a complaint after watching that in the news....There was no need for maximum punishment in this case," he said.