UP court gives Rahul bail in 2018 defamation case; next court hearing on March 2

SULTANPUR (UP) — Congress MP Rahul Gandhi appeared in a special court here on Tuesday in a defamation case filed by a BJP leader for his remarks against Union Home Minister Amit Shah in 2018, and was granted bail.

The former Congress president entered the MP-MLA court at 11 am amid tight security and came out 25 minutes later. He headed straight to Rae Bareli.

Slogans of "Rahul Gandhi Zindabad" and "Bharat Jodo" were raised as Gandhi, who could not attend the last hearing on January 18 as he was busy with his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, arrived for the hearing. The next hearing will be held on March 2.

Sources said he was supposed to come here by a helicopter from Fursatganj in the neighbouring Amethi district and tight security arrangements were made at the Amhat airport here. But there was a change in plan and he reached via road, covering a distance of about 75 km, with Congress workers welcoming him along the route.

Gandhi was granted bail by judge Yogesh Yadav after filling two bail bonds of Rs 25,000, his counsel Kashi Prasad Shukla told reporters.

A complaint was filed here against Rahul Gandhi for his alleged indecent remarks against Amit Shah during the Karnataka elections six years ago.

BJP leader Vijay Mishra filed the case on August 4, 2018 over Gandhi's alleged objectionable comments against Shah at a press conference in Bengaluru in May that year during the Karnataka elections.

The complainant referred to Gandhi's comment that the BJP claims to believe in honest and clean politics but has a party president who is an "accused" in a murder case. Shah was BJP president when Gandhi made the remark.

About four years before Gandhi's remark, a special CBI court in Mumbai discharged Shah in a 2005 fake encounter case when he was a minister of state for home in Gujarat.

"The BJP is the biggest party of the country. Calling its (then) president a murderer is unjustifiable," Mishra told reporters on Tuesday. He said Gandhi had skipped several summonses.

During the hearing on January 18, for the first time his advocate Kashi Prasad Shukla appeared in the court on behalf of Rahul Gandhi.

Vijay Mishra is a BJP leader and hails from Hanumanganj of Kotwali Dehat police station in Sultanpur.

His allegation was that Gandhi had made objectionable remarks against the then BJP national president and present Union Home Minister Amit Shah at a press conference held in Karnataka's capital Bengaluru in 2018.