Sultanpur (Uttar Pradesh) [India], October 26 (ANI): Advocate Kashi Prasad Shukla, representing Rahul Gandhi, welcomed the court’s decision to dismiss a 2018 criminal defamation lawsuit against him on Monday, highlighting the court’s finding that the complainant lacked legal standing.
Reacting to the verdict, which ruled that remarks made during the 2018 Karnataka Assembly campaign were not defamatory, advocate Kashi Prasad Shukla expressed satisfaction while noting that the legal team awaits the complete judicial text.
“Rahul Gandhi has been acquitted in this case. The court determined that the complainant, Vijay Mishra, did not qualify as an aggrieved person,” Kashi Prasad Shukla told ANI.
Shukla added that while the defence is celebrating the outcome, the details will be provided once the formal judgment is reviewed.
“Since we have not yet been able to review the full text of the judgment, we are currently expressing our happiness over the fact that Rahul Gandhi has been acquitted. As for the specific reasoning or the grounds upon which the case was dismissed, we cannot provide full details until we have the complete judgment,” Advocate Kashi Prasad Shukla said.
The advocate’s statement came shortly after Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Shubham Verma dismissed the 2018 criminal defamation lawsuit against Gandhi, ruling that his controversial remarks made during the 2018 Karnataka Assembly campaign were not defamatory in nature.
On Monday, Congress general secretary KC Venugopal launched a sharp attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), framing the legal victory as a triumph of truth over political persecution following the acquittal of Leader of the Opposition (LoP) Rahul Gandhi by a Special MP/MLA Court in Sultanpur, Uttar Pradesh.
Welcoming the judicial verdict, Venugopal on X reiterated the Congress party’s stand, asserting that the party will continue its political battle through non-violent means by following “Gandhian lines and defeat them with love, compassion and perseverance.”
“The facts are before us – this is a party run by criminals, promoting those who commit the worst of crimes to the highest echelons of power. Ours is a noble fight to defeat these criminals. We will fight on Gandhian lines and defeat them with love, compassion and perseverance. Satyamev Jayate,” he said.
Venugopal further shared Rahul Gandhi’s statement on Union Home Minister Amit Shah that read, ”People in India forget that the president of BJP is a murder accused. That’s the truth. The party that talks about honesty, decency, has a person who has been accused of murder as president.”
The phrase “murder accused” cited during the 2018 campaign exchange pertained to the 2005 Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case in Gujarat.
While Union Home Minister Amit Shah was initially named as an accused in the case during earlier investigative stages, a Special CBI Court in Mumbai completely discharged Amit Shah of all charges in December 2014.
The CBI court ruled that there was no sufficient evidence to frame charges or proceed with a trial against him.
Despite Shah’s full legal discharge in 2014, the political rhetoric surrounding the 2018 Bengaluru remarks remained a subject of ongoing litigation until the Special MP/MLA Court in Sultanpur formally closed the trial with Gandhi’s acquittal.
The verdict was pronounced on Monday, October 26, ending an eight-year-long legal battle. Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Shubham Verma held that the comments delivered by Rahul Gandhi lacked defamatory intent under criminal law, resulting in a full acquittal.
The criminal defamation case was originally filed in August 2018 by local BJP politician Vijay Mishra. The complaint stemmed from a press conference held by Gandhi in Bengaluru in May 2018 ahead of the Karnataka Assembly elections, where he referred to then-BJP National President Amit Shah as an “accused in a murder case.”
Gandhi’s legal defence maintained throughout the trial that the remarks were presented out of context and were devoid of malicious intent to defame, an argument ultimately accepted by the court. (ANI)
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