The Jharkhand High Court on July 4 granted relief to former Congress MP Rahul Gandhi in the defamation case filed by advocate Pradeep Modi who practices in Ranchi. The next hearing will be heard on August 16.
Justice S. K. Dwivedi also ordered that no coercive action should be taken against Mr. Gandhi. The petitioner, Pradeep Modi, had filed a ₹20 crore defamation case against the senior Congress leader.
He had claimed in his petition that while addressing a rally in Morabadi in Ranchi during the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Mr. Gandhi had referred to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, businessman Nirav Modi and Lalit Modi that “why all persons bearing the surname Modi are thieves.”
In the year 2019, during a public meeting in Karnataka, Mr. Gandhi had said in one of his public meetings that ‘Why all people having Modi are thieves?’. After his statement, defamation cases were filed against him at different places in the country.
The court also quashed the petition asking him to be physically present.
Mr. Gandhi’s advocate Kaushik Sarkhel said, “The next hearing in the case is on August 16 and petitioner has also been given two-week time to reply in the matter.
The former MP from Wayanad, has already been convicted in criminal defamation case by Surat court over his remark followed by getting disqualified as a Lok Sabha member. He had even vacated his official residence as well.
After the conviction of Mr. Gandhi, Opposition parties had protested vehemently across country including Jharkhand. A session court in Surat on April 20 dismissed Mr. Gandhi’s plea seeking to stay his conviction in the defamation case.
