Rahul Gandhi moves Gujarat HC for stay on defamation conviction
Darpan News Desk IANS, 25 Apr, 2023 04:03 PM
Ahmedabad, April 25 (IANS) Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday filed an appeal in the Gujarat High Court, seeking a stay on his conviction by a magistrate's court in a criminal defamation case.
The appeal will be heard by a single-judge bench in due course. On April 20, a sessions court in Surat dismissed Gandhi's plea for the suspension of his conviction.
Gandhi, now disqualified as a parliamentarian, was convicted by a magistrate's court on March 23 for his controversial remark, "All thieves have Modi surname," made during a political campaign in Karnataka's Kolar in 2019. Former BJP MLA Purnesh Modi claimed that Gandhi's statement humiliated and defamed persons with the Modi surname.
The magistrate court accepted Modi's contention that Gandhi intentionally insulted people with the 'Modi' surname. The sessions judge refused to stay the conviction, leading to Gandhi's present plea before the High Court.
Channi also said that 997 students from the state were in Ukraine, out of whom 420 have returned, and 200 students have reached Poland and are safe but some of the people are still stuck in Ukraine.
In 2017, the Aam Aadmi Party had got around 23 per cent votes but the projections for this election is 39 per cent, while Congress seems to have lost around 11 per cent votes, against in last election's over 38 per cent now, to around 26 per cent and may see its tally come down from 77 seats to 25 seats.
Harjot's brother Prabhjot Singh, who resides in Delhi's Chhattarpur, told IANS: "The last conversation I had with Harjot was on February 26 at 9 p.m. I haven't spoken to him since then. On March 2, at night, he contacted the family and informed them about his injuries.
While directing officials to ensure safe return of the remaining students and other persons stuck in Ukraine, he said the state government is sparing no effort to help the distressed families in this hour of crisis.
Over 700 Indian students are stuck in Sumy and they are running out of basic necessities like food and water and they have been urging the Indian government to get them evacuated from there.
Over 7,400 Indian nationals are expected to be evacuated under the 'Operation Ganga' in the next two days, the government said on Thursday. The Centre has initiated an airlift operation to evacuate Indians, who have found their way to the neighbouring countries of war-torn Ukraine.
