SC to hear defamation case against Rahul Gandhi over alleged remarks on Amit Shah on January 20

The appeal challenges last year's Jharkhand High Court verdict rejecting his plea to quash a defamation case filed by a BJP leader over his alleged remark calling Home Minister Amit Shah a “murderer” during the 2019 Lok Sabha election campaign.
Supreme Court of India
Supreme Court of India(File Photo | EPS)
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The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's appeal on Monday, 20 January.

The appeal challenges last year's Jharkhand High Court verdict rejecting his plea to quash a defamation case filed by a BJP leader over his alleged remark calling Home Minister Amit Shah a “murderer” during the 2019 Lok Sabha election campaign.

According to the Supreme Court's cause list uploaded on the SC website on Sunday, a two-judge bench of the apex court, led by Justice Vikram Nath and also comprising Justice Sandeep Mehta, is slated to hear the Congress's Member of Parliament (MP), Gandhi's appeal on 20 January, Monday.

The Leader of Opposition (LOP), Rahul Gandhi, had moved the apex court after the Jharkhand High Court dismissed his petition in February last year. The petition sought to quash an ongoing 2018 defamation case in a trial court.

The defamation case was filed by a BJP leader, Navin Jha, who alleged in his complaint that Rahul Gandhi, during a Congress plenary session on 18 March 2018, made a speech against the BJP, allegedly calling Amit Shah a "murder accused."

In his defamation complaint, he further said that the Congress leader's comments were an insult to all workers, supporters, and leaders "who have been working selflessly for the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP).”

The Jharkhand HC judge, Justice Ambuj Nath, dismissed Gandhi’s plea after finding Gandhi's comments "prima facie defamatory in nature."

"Prima facie the alleged statement (Rahul Gandhi) points out that Gandhi has imputed that the BJP leadership was drunk with power and was composed of liars. It further means that the party workers of the BJP will accept such person/persons as their leader. This imputation is prima facie defamatory in nature," the Jharkhand HC, had said, in its judgement, last year, before refusing to quash the defamation proceedings case going on in a trial court in Jharkhand.

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