The Bombay High Court on Monday deferred hearing of a defamation suit filed by a local BJP leader in a magistrate court against former Congress president Rahul Gandhi.
A single Bench of Justice S.K. Shinde was hearing a plea filed by Mr. Gandhi seeking to quash the summons issued to him by the magistrate court on the suit filed by Mahesh Shrishrimal in 2018.
The High Court said it would hear Mr. Gandhi’s plea on December 16 and directed the magistrate to defer the hearing beyond December 20.
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In his plea, the local BJP leader had alleged that Mr. Gandhi called Prime Minister Narendra Modi ‘Commander in Chief’ and since Mr. Modi is head of the country and not head of the party, Mr. Shrishrimal, being a member of the party, was defamed.
In July 2021, the magistrate court issued summons to Mr. Gandhi but he could not appear due to the pandemic. He filed the petition to quash the case before the High Court on November 12 on the grounds that in a defamation case the party has to be aggrieved personally and directly.