The apex court of India has granted a stay on Rahul Gandhi's conviction in the ‘Modi' surname defamation case.
While staying the conviction, the court said that the trial judge had not given any reason for imposing the maximum punishment of two years for an offence that is non-cognisable, bailable, and compoundable.
It was shocking to see a maximum sentence of two years in a defamation case where there was no identifiable party who was defamed, Senior Advocate Sanjoy Ghose told BQ Prime.
In a case of defamation, to award a maximum sentence is very unusual, but it is a matter of the discretion of the court, and it appears that the lower courts in this case exercised that discretion rather strictly, said Senior Advocate Sidharth Luthra.
The top court also said that the provision for disqualification only came into play because the trial judge gave Gandhi the maximum sentence.
However, since Gandhi's conviction has now been stayed, the question remains as to what this means for the Congress leader.
According to Ghose, the stigma of being a convict is now gone, and Gandhi is not a convict in the eyes of the law. Though judicially obtained, it is a political and moral victory for him.
Gandhi will now have to make a representation to the Election Commission so as to stop the commission from going ahead and announcing by-elections for the Wayanad constituency, he said.
Luthra said that the effect of this stay of conviction would be that Gandhi would have to go to the Speaker of the Lok Sabha and ask him to reinstate him as a Member of the House. If the Speaker does not reciprocate his request for reinstatement, he will have to go to court and challenge it, he said.
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