The Supreme Court on Friday issued a notice on an appeal filed by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi against a Gujarat high court order that refused to put on hold his conviction and a two-year jail term in a criminal defamation case, fixing August 4 to hear his plea for staying the guilty verdict.
“The whole point right now is whether the conviction has to be stayed or not,” remarked a bench of justices BR Gavai and PK Mishra as it sought responses from Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Purnesh Modi, who is the complainant in the case, and the Gujarat government.
During the brief hearing, the court expressed surprise over the high court’s lengthy judgment on the point of staying the conviction. “We don’t understand a lengthy reply in a matter like this. The Gujarat high court penned down over 100-page judgment. It’s peculiar of the high court to write such a lengthy judgment,” observed the bench.
Senior counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi appeared for Gandhi. Senior advocate Mahesh Jethmalani appeared for the complainant.
At the outset of the hearing, justice Gavai pointed out that his father was associated with Congress for over 40 years though he was not a party member. “He was closely associated with Congress. He became an MP and also a governor with the help of Congress. My brother is still in politics and associated with Congress. I am disclosing this at the very beginning so as to ask you if you would still want me to hear this case,” the judge told Singhvi and Jethmalani.
{{/usCountry}}At the outset of the hearing, justice Gavai pointed out that his father was associated with Congress for over 40 years though he was not a party member. “He was closely associated with Congress. He became an MP and also a governor with the help of Congress. My brother is still in politics and associated with Congress. I am disclosing this at the very beginning so as to ask you if you would still want me to hear this case,” the judge told Singhvi and Jethmalani.
{{/usCountry}}Both the lawyers were quick to respond that they have no issue at all with justice Gavai hearing the matter.
“We already know what my lords have said in the open court just now. We would never have problems. It is perhaps because of the times that we live in that my lords had to say it,” Singhvi said.
Responding, justice Gavai said: “I felt it was my duty to point it out. You both already know about this. Incidentally, my father was a good friend to your [Singhvi’s] father and his [Jethmalani’s] father as well I even assisted Mr Jethmalani’s father in an election matter.”
Justice Gavai added that he even wrote in a judgment that although his family had a family background, it never affected him as a judge.
During the hearing, Singhvi made out a case for an early hearing, pointing out Gandhi has suffered 111 days as MP and missed two parliamentary sessions, including the ongoing Monsoon Session. Accepting his request, the bench agreed to hear the case on August 4.
The appeal was filed by Gandhi on July 15, exactly a week after the high court dealt a blow to his endeavour to revive his Lok Sabha membership, ruling that the Congress leader “breached modesty” and that his offence involved “moral turpitude”.
In his appeal, Gandhi urged the top court to immediately stay his conviction to enable him to regain his MP status, arguing the conviction order would lead to throttling of free speech, free expression, free thought, and free statement.
“It would contribute to the systematic, repetitive emasculation of democratic institutions and the consequent strangulation of democracy which would be gravely detrimental to the political climate and future of India,” he said.
Gandhi’s petition complained that a political speech in the course of democratic political activity, critical of economic offenders, and also of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has been held to be an act of moral turpitude inviting the harshest punishment.
“Such a finding is gravely detrimental to democratic free speech in the midst of a political campaign. It is respectfully submitted that the same will set a disastrous precedent wiping out any form of political dialogue or debate which is remotely critical in any manner,” it said.
The complainant in the case, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Purnesh Modi, filed his caveat in the top court to ensure no orders are passed on Gandhi’s appeal without hearing his side.
On March 23, a Gujarat magisterial court convicted Gandhi for his remarks on the Modi surname after Purnesh Modi filed a criminal complaint. The Congress leader was sentenced to two-year imprisonment, which disqualified him as an MP from Kerala’s Wayanad under the Representation of People Act on March 24, following a notification from the Lok Sabha Secretariat.
Gandhi approached the sessions court, which rejected his plea for a stay on his conviction on April 20, compelling him to approach the high court. The April 20 order cited Gandhi’s stature as an MP and former chief of the country’s second-largest political party and said he should have been more careful in his comments.
On July 7, the high court affirmed this order, rejecting Gandhi’s revision application seeking a stay on his conviction.
“The present conviction is a serious matter affecting a large segment of society and needs to be viewed by this court with the gravity and significance it commands... It is now the need of the hour to have purity in politics. Representatives of people should be men of a clear antecedent,” said justice Hemant P Prachchhak in his judgment.
The high court judgment meant that Gandhi’s disqualification from the Lok Sabha will continue. While Gandhi cannot be arrested since his jail term remains suspended for now, only a stay on his conviction by the Supreme Court or a favourable judgment in his appeal by a sessions court can enable him to contest next year’s Lok Sabha elections.
The conviction and two-year jail term renders Gandhi unfit to enter either House of Parliament for eight years. But this can be reversed if he can get the conviction overturned or suspended by a higher court.
Gandhi’s legal team has to now get at least a stay on the conviction in the next 10 months to allow the former Congress chief to contest the 2024 polls. In his appeal to the top court, Gandhi contended that the entire approach of the judgments by the high court and the courts below has been to mischaracterise his one-line statement as hugely serious.
“This has resulted in the inexorable exclusion of the petitioner from all political elective office for a long period of 8 years. That too in the world’s largest democracy where the Petitioner has been a former President of the oldest political movement in the country and is also continuously in the vanguard of opposition political activity,” the appeal added.
If political satire were to be held to be a base motive, Gandhi said, any political speech which is colourfully critical of the government, or any other political party or involves a turn of phrase in the course of a vigorous political speech would become an act of moral turpitude. This would completely corrode the foundations of democracy.
“To equate a political speech criticising the government or a section of society, even if defamatory, to the aforesaid, sets a completely incongruous standard unknown to jurisprudence which deals with moral turpitude,” the plea said.