Surat: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will appear before a magisterial court in Surat on Thursday in a criminal defamation case filed against him for saying “why all thieves share the Modi surname” during the Lok Sabha poll campaign this year.
Chief Judicial Magistrate B H Kapadia had in May issued summons to Gandhi after admitting a complaint filed by local BJP MLA Purnesh Modi under IPC sections 499 and 500, which deal with criminal defamation.
In the complaint, the BJP MLA had alleged that Rahul Gandhi has defamed the whole community of Modi with his “thieves” remark.
At a campaign rally at Kolar in Karnataka on April 13, Gandhi had reportedly said, “Nirav Modi, Lalit Modi, Narendra Modi…how come they all have Modi as a common surname? How come all thieves have Modi as a common surname?”
Gandhi is also accused in two other defamation cases pertaining to Union Home Minister Amit Shah. Gandhi called Shah a “murder accused” and also claimed that Shah is involved in a “scam” scrapped currency notes at Ahmedabad District Cooperative Bank, with a face value of Rs 750 crore were exchanged with valid bills within five days of demonetisation in 2016.
