RANCHI: The Jharkhand High Court on Wednesday exempted Congress parliamentarian Rahul Gandhi from a personal appearance before an MP-MLA court in Ranchi in the Modi surname case. The senior Congress leader had moved to the high court challenging the Ranchi MP-MLA court order that had directed him to appear in person in a defamation case.
Hurt by the statement made by Rahul Gandhi during 2019 LS Polls, terming ‘why all thieves share the Modi surname,’ Pradeep Modi had filed a defamation case against him. A single bench of Justice Sanjay Kumar Dwivedi passed the order on Gandhi’s petition seeking exemption from his personal appearance in the case.
“The court has allowed the petition under section 205 of CrPC filed by Rahul Gandhi against the order issued by MP-MLA court in Ranchi directing him to appear in person,” said Gandhi’s advocate Piyush Chitresh. Now, Rahul Gandhi does not need to appear personally in court, he added.
Earlier, the special MP-MLA court had rejected his petition seeking exemption from personal appearance in the ‘Modi surname’ case following which he moved to Jharkhand High Court.
Incidentally, Rahul Gandhi, who has been sentenced to two years imprisonment by a Surat Court, is also facing three defamation charges in Jharkhand for his defamatory remarks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the then BJP President Amit Shah. Two cases are pending in different courts in Ranchi while the
the third one is pending in Chaibasa.
The first case filed in Ranchi is related to the defamatory statement ‘Sare Modi Chor Hain,’ while the other two cases filed in Ranchi and Chaibasa are related to the defamatory statement made against Amit Shah.
Rahul Gandhi had challenged the issuance of summons and quashing of criminal proceedings initiated against him by the Ranchi district court after advocate Pradeep Modi filed a defamation case against him, but the Jharkhand High Court rejected his plea.