A Chaibasa court has issued a non-bailable warrant against Rahul Gandhi in a 2018 defamation case.
The case stems from his remark calling BJP’s Amit Shah a “murderer.”
Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is facing legal trouble once again. The MP-MLA Special Court in Chaibasa, Jharkhand has issued a non-bailable warrant against him in a defamation case that dates back to 2018.
The court has ordered Rahul Gandhi to appear in person on June 26.
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This case is based on Rahul Gandhi’s statement during a Congress party event in 2018. He had allegedly made derogatory remarks against Amit Shah, who was the BJP National President at that time.
According to Pratap Katiyar, a resident of Chaibasa who filed the complaint,
Rahul Gandhi said,
“no murderer can become the National President in Congress. Congressmen cannot accept a murderer as the National President, this is possible only in the BJP.”
The complainant took this as a direct defamatory comment aimed at Amit Shah and filed a complaint on July 9, 2018. Since then, the case has been going on in the courts.
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In April 2022, the Chaibasa court had first issued a bailable warrant against Rahul Gandhi after he failed to respond to earlier summons.
However, when he still did not appear in court, the matter was taken more seriously and a non-bailable warrant was issued in February 2024.
Rahul Gandhi’s legal team had requested the court to allow him to skip personal appearance and asked for exemption, but the Chaibasa court rejected the plea.
Following this, Rahul Gandhi approached the Jharkhand High Court, which gave him interim relief by staying the warrant for a few months.
But in March 2024, the High Court disposed of his petition, which allowed the trial to start again in the lower court.
After that, when his lawyers once more asked the Chaibasa court to allow Rahul Gandhi to stay away from personal appearance, the request was again turned down by the court.
Apart from this case in Chaibasa, Rahul Gandhi is also facing another defamation case in Sultanpur, Uttar Pradesh.
That case also involves his remarks against Amit Shah. In that case, he had appeared in person in the Sultanpur court in July last year.
However, on May 17, the hearing in that case did not take place because there was a lawyers’ workshop on that day.
The court proceedings against Rahul Gandhi are getting serious, especially as he has missed several court appearances, and his requests for exemption from personal appearance have been repeatedly denied.
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His 2018 remark, “no murderer can become the National President in Congress. Congressmen cannot accept a murderer as the National President, this is possible only in the BJP,” is at the centre of both the Chaibasa and Sultanpur defamation cases.
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