SULTANPUR (UP), Oct 6: A special court in Sultanpur on Monday continued hearing arguments in a defamation case involving Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, but the proceedings remained inconclusive.
Santosh Kumar Pandey, appearing for complainant and local BJP leader Vijay Mishra, continued presenting his submissions before Special Judge Shubham Verma. The court has now scheduled the matter for further hearing on October 7, Pandey said.
The complainant’s counsel had initially begun his arguments on September 21. As the submissions remained unfinished, the court had fixed September 29 for the next hearing. However, proceedings could not be held on that date following the death of a senior advocate, after which October 1 was fixed for the matter.
The complaint relates to alleged objectionable comments attributed to Gandhi during an election campaign in Bengaluru in 2018. The remarks were reportedly directed at Amit Shah, who was then the BJP national president and is currently the Union Home Minister.
Mishra, a former chairman of the district cooperative bank and BJP leader, filed the defamation complaint against Gandhi on August 4, 2018.
The trial court summoned Gandhi to appear in the case on November 27, 2023. He later appeared before the court and was granted bail.
During the proceedings, Mishra also sought permission for Gandhi’s voice sample to be compared with a sample examined by a forensic science laboratory. The trial court rejected the application, following which Mishra approached the sessions court, which also declined to interfere.
The matter subsequently reached the Allahabad High Court. The High Court dismissed Mishra’s challenge to the decisions of the lower courts and rejected his plea seeking forensic comparison of Gandhi’s voice sample.