{"id":3835,"date":"2023-03-24T07:08:28","date_gmt":"2023-03-23T18:08:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=3835"},"modified":"2023-03-24T07:08:28","modified_gmt":"2023-03-23T18:08:28","slug":"rahul-gandhi-indias-congress-leader-sentenced-to-jail-for-modi-thieves-remark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=3835","title":{"rendered":"Rahul Gandhi: India’s Congress leader sentenced to jail for Modi ‘thieves’ remark"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi has been sentenced to two years in prison in a criminal defamation case.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Congress MP was convicted by the court in Gujarat state for 2019 comments about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s surname at an election rally.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr Gandhi, who was present in court for sentencing, remains out of jail on bail for 30 days and will appeal.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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His party accused Mr Modi’s government of targeting him. General elections are due next year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A Congress spokesman said the ruling was full of “legally unsustainable conclusions” – and vowed its politicians would not be silenced.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“Make no mistake. All your attempts to create a chilling effect, a throttling effect, a strangulating effect on open fearless speech relating to public influence will not stop either Rahul Gandhi or the Congress Party,” Abhishek Manu Singhvi told a news conference.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) says due judicial process has been followed in the case, which dates back to the campaign ahead of the last election.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Speaking at a rally in Karnataka state<\/a>\u00a0in April 2019, Mr Gandhi had said: “Why do all these thieves have Modi as their surname? Nirav Modi, Lalit Modi, Narendra Modi.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Nirav Modi is a fugitive Indian diamond tycoon while Lalit Modi is a former chief of the Indian Premier League who has been banned for life by the country’s cricket board. Mr Gandhi argues that he made the comment to highlight corruption and it was not directed against any community.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Supporters<\/span>IMAGE SOURCE,<\/span>REUTERS<\/span><\/div>
Image caption,<\/span><\/p>\n
Mr Modi won a landslide last time – here BJP supporters are seen wearing masks of him ahead of the 2019 election<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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The case against him was filed on the basis of a complaint by Purnesh Modi, a BJP lawmaker who said Mr Gandhi’s comments had defamed the entire Modi community.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But some experts were puzzled by the order handed down by the court in Surat. Legal scholar Gautam Bhatia tweeted that “references to a generic class of persons” – surnames in this case – are not “actionable unless an individual can show a direct reference to themselves”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“If a man says ‘all lawyers are thieves’, then I, as a lawyer, cannot file a case against him for defamation unless I can show its imputation aimed at me,” Mr Bhatia said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr Gandhi’s lawyer, Kirit Panwala, told BBC Gujarati their defence was based on four points: “Firstly, Mr Gandhi is not a resident of Gujarat and so, before the complaint, an inquiry should be conducted. Secondly, there is no community named Modi. Thirdly, there is no association of people with Modi as their surname and lastly, there was no ill intention behind Mr Gandhi’s speech.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

SOURCE BBC<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi has been sentenced to two years in prison in a criminal defamation case. The Congress MP was convicted by the court in Gujarat state for 2019 comments about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s surname at an election rally. Mr Gandhi, who was present in court for sentencing, remains out of jail […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":3836,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[176,177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-india-news","category-world"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3835"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3837,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3835\/revisions\/3837"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}