Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday appeared before a local court in Mumbai’s Mazgaon on Thursday in connection with the RSS defamation case.
Gandhi arrived at the Mumbai airport in the morning, where he was received by Mumbai Congress Chief Milind Deora.
His appearance at the local court comes a day after he stepped down from the post of the Congress chief and shared his resignation letter publicly on micro-blogging site Twitter, taking the onus of the party’s defeat in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
The case has been filed by a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) worker against Gandhi for allegedly claiming that the right-wing organisation was linked with the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh.
The case is slated to be heard at the Mazgaon Metropolitan Magistrate court today.
Speaking to news agency ANI, the complainant Dhrutiman Joshi said on Wednesday, “Rahul Gandhi will appear before Mazgaon Court tomorrow (July 4) in connection with a criminal defamation case that was filed against him in 2017 by me, for saying that journalist Gauri Lankesh was killed because she spoke against RSS.”
Earlier, a defamation case has been filed by lawyer and RSS activist Joshi against Gandhi, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and CPI (M) and its leader Sitaram Yechury for allegedly blaming the RSS for the death of journalist and activist Gauri Lankesh.
While the Mazgaon court had dismissed the complaint against Sonia Gandhi and the CPI (M), the court had issued summons to Rahul Gandhi and Yechury for questioning related to the matter.
On September 5, 2017, two bike-borne gunmen had shot and killed senior journalist Lankesh outside her home in Bengaluru.
Dhrutiman Joshi has alleged that within a day of Lankesh’s murder, Rahul Gandhi had accused the RSS of being involved in the crime by reportedly saying that “anybody who speaks against the ideology of the BJP, against the ideology of the RSS is pressured, beaten, attacked and even killed.”
The RSS activist also claimed that Yechury had also been heard alleging that it was the RSS ideology and RSS men who were responsible for the murder of Gauri Lankesh. In his complaint, Joshi said, “For a mere political score, the accused had unnecessarily dragged the name of RSS in a move to rake up negative sentiments in the minds of the people against the RSS.”
The complainant had asked the court to charge the accused under section 499 (defamation) and section 500 (punishment for defamation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Notably, this is the second defamation case filed against the former Congress president in connection with the RSS.
In 2014, another activist of the right-wing group Rajesh Kunte had filed a defamation case against Gandhi over a comment made by him at an election rally where he had purportedly stated that the RSS people “had killed Mahatma Gandhi.”
Last year, in a hearing at a local Thane court, Rahul Gandhi had pleaded “not guilty” to the charges and had said that he was ready to face trial.
SOURCE-TIMES NEWS
