Rahul Gandhi reaches Sultanpur court to appear in 2018 defamation case

PTI, Feb 20, 2024, 11:21 AM IST

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi reached a special court in Sultanpur on Tuesday to appear in a defamation case filed by a BJP leader for his remarks against Home Minister Amit Shah in 2018.

The case was filed by Vijay Mishra on August 4, 2018 against Gandhi for allegedly making objectionable comments against Shah at a press conference in Bengaluru on May 8 that year during Karnataka elections.

The complainant referred to Gandhi’s comment that the BJP claims to believe in honest and clean politics but has a party president who is an ”accused” in a murder case. Shah was the BJP president when Gandhi made the remark.

About four years before Gandhi’s remark, a special CBI court in Mumbai had discharged Shah in a 2005 fake encounter case when he was a minister of state for home in Gujarat.

Gandhi could not attend the last hearing in the special MP-MLA court on January 18 due as he was busy with his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra.

”The BJP is the biggest party of the country. Calling its (then) president a murderer is unjustifiable,” Mishra told reporters on Tuesday.

He said Gandhi has skipped several summonses.