Rahul Gandhi secures bail in defamatory speech case

Mumbai: Almost two years after a magisterial court in Bhiwandi in Maharashtra’s Thane district issued him summons, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi appeared before it on Wednesday and secured bail in connection with a case filed against him for his alleged defamatory speech. Mr Gandhi had allegedly spoken about the role of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination, in the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

It took around 35 minutes for Mr Gandhi to enter the court premises and come out after securing bail, and, during this period, only a few, including few Congress leaders, security personnel, media persons and lawyers, were allowed inside the court premises.

As soon as magistrate Tushar B. Waje came on the dais, complainant Rajesh Kunte’s lawyer, Nandu Phadke, told the court that if Mr Gandhi is ready to tender an apology and give a written undertaking that he would not repeat such allegations in the future, he is ready to withdraw his complaint because “Kunte comes from a background that believes in forgive and forget”. However nobody from Mr Gandhi’s side replied to this and hence the court proceeded.

In the meantime, advocate Narayan Iyer told the court that he was moving the bail application for Mr Gandhi. He said that since the alleged offence is bailable, Mr Gandhi should be granted bail.

Mr Waje allowed bail to Mr Gandhi on personal surety, following which former Union minister Shivraj Patil stood surety for the Congress leader. To this, Mr Phadke asked the judge to first verify his documents. The judge, however, said that the same procedure would be adopted for this bail that is practised for other cases and asked for Mr Patil’s name, address and the full name of the person for whom he was standing surety. On a query raised by the magistrate, Mr Patil told the court that he was producing documents of his Latur land and he also has documents like driving licence and Aadhaar card. Following this, the court granted Mr Gandhi bail.

When the judge fixed January 30 as next date of hearing, advocate Ashok Mundergi requested the court to exempt Mr Gandhi from personal appearance owing to his political commitments. At this, the complainant’s lawyer Phadke told the court that Rahul should be treated as an “ordinary citizen”.

It may be recalled that Mr Gandhi had challenged the summons issued by the magistrate court in the Bombay high court and later in the Supreme Court; however on September 1, he preferred to face the trial as an accused in the defamation case, submitting before the apex court that he stood by “every word” of his statement.