After the Supreme Court granted an interim stay on the conviction of member of Parliament Rahul Gandhi in a 2019 defamation case, his membership was restored today by the Lok Sabha secretariat.
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TODAY, the Lok Sabha Secretariat restored the membership of the leader of the Indian National Congress Rahul Gandhi five months after he was convicted in a four years old defamation case.
This happened pursuant to the August 4 Order of the Supreme Court granting interim stay on the conviction and sentencing in a defamation case filed by former member of the Gujarat legislative assembly, Purnesh Isharbhai Modi.
Background
On March 23, Gandhi was convicted by H.H. Verma, chief judicial magistrate, Surat, under Sections 499 (defamation) and 500 (punishment for defamation) of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.
He was convicted for having defamed ‘Modi’ community through his single imputation, “How are the names of all these thieves Modi, Modi, Modi— Nirav Modi, Lalit Modi, Narendra Modi— and if you search a little, more Modis will spill out?”
These remarks were made by Gandhi during a rally in Kolar, Karnataka during the 2019 Lok Sabha election campaign.
Gandhi has been sentenced to two years, which is the maximum punishment for defamation, and minimum to incur a disqualification.
On March 24, he was disqualified from Lok Sabha under Section 8(3) (disqualification on conviction for certain offences) of The Representation of the People Act, 1951 (1951 Act).
According to Section 8(3) of the 1951 Act, a member of the Parliament (MP) or legislature of a state who has been convicted for an offence and sentenced to suffer imprisonment for not less than two years, stands disqualified from the date of the conviction.
Gandhi filed an appeal before a sessions court in Surat for a stay on this conviction and challenging the March 23 Order. He argued that the complaint is not maintainable because the Modi community is not an identifiable class. However, the plea seeking stay on conviction was dismissed.
Eventually, Gandhi moved the Gujarat High Court challenging the Order of surat’s sessions court.
On July 7, a single judge of the Gujarat High Court, Justice Hemant Prachchhak, denied the stay on the conviction and suspension of sentence in the defamation case. The court observed that Modi is an “identifiable class”.
The court added that despite Gandhi being a first-time offender, he could not argue against the maximum punishment granted to him because he has a “public standing” and any utterance by him would attract “large-scale” publication. These factors contribute to increasing the seriousness of the offence committed by him, the court averred.
“Being a public personality [Rahul Gandhi] is vested with the duty to exercise this vast power [of attracting the public] at his disposal with caution ensuring that dignity and reputation of a large number of persons or any identifiable class is not jeopardised due to his political activities or utterances,” the court remarked.
Gandhi approached the Supreme Court through a special leave petition in which he argued that he had suffered “irreparable injury” because of the conviction.
The court granted interim protection till the time the sessions court in Surat hears an appeal against the main conviction Order.
What did disqualification achieve against Gandhi?
A three-judge Bench of Justices B.R. Gavai, comprising P.S. Narasimha and P.V. Sanjay Kumar while granting interim relief to Gandhi, expressed their concern against the maximum sentence granted to him without any justification by the trial court.
Justice Gavai had remarked: “You are not only affecting the rights of one individual but the rights of the entire constituency.”
The reason why an Order seeking stay on his conviction was necessary was because as per Article 102(1)(e) (disqualifications for membership), an MP is disqualified “if he is so disqualified by or under any law made by Parliament”.
There were three plausible consequences of his disqualification. Gandhi, who is a MP from Wayanad Kerala, after having suffered disqualification ceased to be an MP. He was prohibited from contesting elections for six years as per the 1951 Act. His seat became automatically vacant as held in Lily Thomas versus Union of India (2013). Lastly, a by-election could have been notified by the Election Commission of India.
However, a Supreme Court three-judge Bench of former Chief Justice of India Dipak Mishra and then Justices Dr D.Y. Chandrachud and A.M. Khanwilkar in Lok Prahari versus Election Commission of India (2018), held that disqualification did not operate after the stay of the conviction pending appeal as explained by The Leaflet here.
Now that Gandhi’s conviction has been stayed, the judgment in the aforementioned case has come to his rescue and his parliamentary membership stands restored.
