Rahul Gandhi discontinues yatra to rush for RSS defamation case
Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday suspended his Kisan Yatra in Uttar Pradesh after travelling to Bareilly and Rampur to rush to Guwahati for appearing on Thursday in a criminal defamation case filed against him in the Kamrup Metropolitan Court by a RSS worker in March.
He is accused of defaming the RSS by stating that the RSS workers had stopped him from entering the Barpeta Satra, a 16th century Vaishnavite monastery, during his visit to Lower Assam’s Barpeta in December last year.
Unlike a civil defamation, the criminal defamation law requires personal presence of the accused in every hearing after getting the summons unless the court grants him exemption from the personal appearance.
Sources said Rahul asserted that he would take on the RSS wherever he is challenged and it was a mistake when he had tried to get quashed a similar criminal defamation suit filed against him in a Bhiwandi court in Maharashtra.
They said Rahul took this firm stand when told by his lawyers that he need not break the Yatra that completed 19th day on Wednesday and they would secure permission from the court for fixing another date for his appearance while trying if he can be granted exemption from the personal appearance. He has to also appear in another criminal defamation case in a Bhiwandi court in Maharashtra on November 16 for his controversial remarks during a poll rally in 2014 that the RSS people had killed Mahatma Gandhi. He had come up to the Supreme Court to quash the case, but he withdrew the appeal on September 1 after Bhiwandi RSS secretary Rajesh Kunte rejected to accept his explanation that he had accused not the RSS as an organisation for Gandhi’s assassination but some people associated with.
His remarks triggered a controversy across the country when he alleged that the women were made to sit at the entrance of the Satra, refusing him entry. One Anjan Kumar Bora, a RSS volunteer, filed the criminal defamation suit against him for making a false statement to defame the RSS and tarnishing its image in the eyes of the public.
He is accused of defaming the RSS by stating that the RSS workers had stopped him from entering the Barpeta Satra, a 16th century Vaishnavite monastery, during his visit to Lower Assam’s Barpeta in December last year.