The Supreme Court on Monday has adjourned a PIL challenging the restoration of Lok Sabha membership of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
A bench of Justices BR Gavai and PS Narasimha adjourned the hearing in view of a letter seeking adjournment of the case.
Gandhi was sentenced to 2 years’ imprisonment which disqualified him as an MP from Kerala’s Wayanad under the rigours of the Representation of People Act. Later, the Supreme Court stayed his convicted and thereafter his Lok Sabha membership was restored.
Lucknow-based advocate Pandey moved the apex court seeking a quashing of the notification of Lok Sabha by which Gandhi’s membership got restored.
Pandey stated that once Gandhi lost his Lok Sabha membership, after being convicted in a criminal defamation case and was awarded 2 years of imprisonment, the Speaker of the Lok Sabha wasn’t right to restore his lost membership.
The plea submitted that once a member of Parliament or a state legislature loses his office by operation of Law in Article 102, 191 of the Constitution read with section 8 (3) of the Representation of People Act 1951, he will continue to be disqualified till he is acquitted from the charges levelled against him by some higher court.
The plea stated, “Rahul Gandhi lost his membership of Lok Sabha when he was convicted for defamation and was awarded a year sentence and as such the Speaker wasn’t right to restore his membership.”
On July 7, the Gujarat High Court affirmed the decision of a Gujarat Sessions court, which refused to put on hold a magisterial court order on March 23 convicting Gandhi and handing out the maximum punishment provided for criminal defamation under the IPC.
Rejecting Gandhi’s plea, the High Court stated that he had been seeking a stay on his conviction on “absolutely non-existent grounds” and that a stay on conviction is not a rule but an exception.
In March, the magisterial court convicted Gandhi for his remarks ahead of the 2019 national polls about the ‘Modi’ surname.
After the magisterial court convicted Gandhi, he approached the Sessions court, which rejected his plea for a stay on his conviction on April 20. Thereafter, he approached the High Court. He later approached the apex court for relief.
Congress leader was sentenced to 2 years in jail on March 23 under sections 499 & 500 (defamation) of the IPC in a case filed by Purnesh Modi.
In April 2019, at a rally in Karnataka’s Kolar, Rahul Gandhi, in a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, stated, “How come all the thieves have Modi as the common surname?”
