NEW DELHI: Congress leader
Rahul Gandhi
on Tuesday was taken into custody briefly before being granted
bail
by a
special court
in Sultanpur in connection with 2018
defamation case
. The case was filed against him by a BJP leader Vijay Mishra in
2018
for his remarks against Home Minister Amit Shah.
Advocate Santosh Pandey said, “He surrendered in the court today.
He surrendered and the court took him into custody for 30-45 minutes. After that, his bail application was submitted and was accepted. The further date has not been given yet. His lawyer said that he is innocent and he has not made any defamatory statement.”
The complaint was lodged by Vijay Mishra on August 4, 2018, accusing Gandhi of making objectionable comments about Shah during a press conference in Bengaluru on May 8 that year, amidst the Karnataka elections. In his comments, Gandhi had referred to Shah as an ‘accused’ in a murder case, questioning BJP’s claim of being a party that believes in honest and clean politics. Shah was cleared of charges related to a 2005 fake encounter case four years prior to Gandhi’s remark.
Due to his prior engagements with the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, Gandhi was unable to attend the previous hearing on January 18. Mishra, the complainant, expressed his dissatisfaction with Gandhi’s repeated absence and emphasised BJP’s stature as the largest party in the country, deeming the murder accusation against its then-president as unjustifiable.
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