justice
India: Supreme Court stays verdict on opposition leader
Rahul Gandhi (centre) waves to his supporters: he is the great-grandson of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and grandson of the future Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. photo
© AP/dpa
He is said to have compared Prime Minister Modi to criminals. But the Supreme Court is staying the conviction of Rahul Gandhi in the defamation trial. A lower court must now review the verdict.
The Supreme Court India has suspended a conviction of opposition leader Rahul Gandhi in a defamation trial.
According to the local legal portals “Bar and Bench” and “Live Law”, a lower court did not adequately explain why it imposed the maximum sentence of two years. The judgment is now to be examined by a previous instance.
According to the Indian news agency PTI, Gandhi’s lawyer KC Kaushik has demanded that the 53-year-old politician quickly be given back his seat in parliament. A court sentenced Gandhi to a two-year prison sentence last March, which was suspended. The reason was that he is said to have made defamatory remarks about India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Under Indian law, an MP loses his mandate if he is sentenced to at least two years in prison for a criminal offence.
Observers saw the trial of Gandhi and the severe punishment as a sign of declining freedom of expression and increasing nannying of the opposition in India under Modi. Gandhi has been fighting back since his conviction by all authorities.
Modi compared to suspected criminals
According to local media, he is said to have compared Modi to suspected criminals at an election campaign event in 2019. “Nirav Modi, Lalit Modi, Narendra Modi. Why do all thieves have Modi as their last name?” he is said to have asked. A deputy from Modi’s Hindu nationalist party BJP then got the process rolling. Modi has been prime minister of the world’s most populous democracy since 2014. He is expected to seek re-election in 2024.
Rahul Gandhi is the great-grandson of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and grandson of future Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. His family has been instrumental in shaping the country’s recent politics – the secular Congress Party has ruled the country for most of its history since India’s independence from Britain in 1947.
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