Court rejecting Rahul's plea 'erroneous, unsustainable'; will challenge: Cong

The Congress on Thursday termed erroneous and unsustainable a Surat court judgement rejecting Rahul Gandhis appeal in a defamation case related to hisModi surname remark and said the judge seems overshadowed by the high office of the prime ministerCongress senior spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said they would move the High Court very shortly as the judgement is fallacious and contrary to all basic principles of lawThe court of Additional Sessions Judge R P Mogera rejected Gandhis application for a relief against a magisterial court order sentencing him to two years in jail in the defamation caseA most unfortunate and unsustainable legal decision of the magistrate has been upheld in an even more unsustainable and erroneous judgement of the Sessions court given today The conviction has been upheld contrary to all basic elementary principles of law Singhvi told reporters at a press conferenceAlso Read Rahul Gandhi still has time to apologise Anurag ThakurLet me assure you that the judgement will be challenged in accordance with law in the very near future he saidArguing that the judgement is wrong with no legal standing he said the court has noted that Prime Minister Modi has been defamed along with 13 crore others with the Modi surname which shows that the judge is overshadowed by the exalted office of the prime ministerClearly unfortunately the judgement is influenced by the high office of the prime minister forgetting that the honourable prime minister is not the complainant Singhvi saidSources said that Singhvi himself a noted lawyer is likely to appear before the High Court in Gujarat while challenging the Sessions Court orderThere is a legal error in the judgement We respect all courts and we have the High Court and Supreme Court We have several grounds to challenge the judgementWe will move the high court in the very near future Singhvi saidWe are confident that superior courts with constitutional power of judicial review namely the High Court and the Supreme Court have the power and will set right the legal errors found in these two judgements We are clear that the judgement in devoid of valid sustainable legal reasoning he saidSinghvi said the oneline remark of Rahul Gandhi in a twoandahalf page speech has been from inception distorted completely out of recognition to serve the narrow ends of motivated complainants that has been hardly interpreted in the sessions court judgement and what little has been said is a complete distortion legally erroneousGandhi had on April 3 approached the sessions court for appeal against the lower courts orderTraining his guns on the BJP government Singhvi said its speed and zeal to act after the magistrates original order shows they are motivated by political animosity from house taking to electricity disconnection to serving notices etcTheir completely misleading and displaced statements about the OBCs have backfired on them and the entire community and the whole of India now see the BJP as using the OBC community for narrow and cheap political games he saidThe voice of Rahul Gandhi is not to be silenced in the manner in which the BJP thinks it can do The BJP has been in a sense from Mr Modi downwards to the government and the ruling party captured in a fear psychosis he said alleging the ruling party has unleashed lakhs of trolls against the former Congress presidentThey sometimes threaten you with privilege notices sometimes it is suspension but they do not know the stuff Rahul Gandhi is made of They do not know the resilience of the Congress party His voice will not be silenced because he speaks to the court of peopleHe did not speak anything which is remotely defamatory in this case he will continue to speak fearlessly in the court of the people Clearly these pressure tactics from defamation privilege notices to not allowing him to speak in Parliament to suspension etc are intended to silence his strong fearless voice on issues of misgovernance on corruption on Adanigate etc the Congress leader saidAfter his conviction by the magistrate court on March 23 Gandhi was disqualified as Lok Sabha MP and he was asked to vacate his official bungalowA stay on the conviction by the sessions court could have paved the way for his reinstatement as Member of ParliamentThe lower court had sentenced him to two years in jail while convicting him for criminal defamation over his remark How come all thieves have Modi as the common surname made during an election rally at Kolar in Karnataka on April 13 2019This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever