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The announcement of disqualification of the Wayanad MP comes a day after a court in Surat sentenced him to two years in the case filed against him over his remarks. It is effective from the date of conviction (March 23).
For now, the court has also granted bail to the Congress leader and suspended the sentence for 30 days to allow him to appeal in a higher court.
The Congress leader now has two uphill battles before him: to get his conviction quashed in the higher court and also save his electoral future.
Here’s all you need to know about the disqualification process and the challenges before Rahul Gandhi …
An uphill battle
The immediate challenge before Rahul is to convince a higher court to quash his conviction in the criminal defamation case.
Usually, the disqualification of an MP can be reversed if a higher court grants a stay on the conviction or decides the appeal in favour of the convicted lawmaker.
However, even if the conviction is not quashed but the sentence is reduced to less than 2 years, Rahul will manage to get his disqualification reversed.
The Section 8(3) in The Representation of the People Act, 1951 states that a person convicted of any offence and sentenced to imprisonment for not less than two years [other than any offence referred to in sub-section (1) or sub-section (2)] shall be disqualified from the date of such conviction and shall continue to be disqualified for a further period of six years since his/her release.
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Rahul Gandhi disqualified as member of Lok Sabha
Can Rahul contest the 2024 Lok Sabha elections?
Rahul also faces the risk of not being able to contest Lok Sabha elections in 2024 if his conviction is not suspended or overturned by a higher court before the elections.
According to the RP Act, a person sentenced to imprisonment of two years or more shall be disqualified “from the date of such conviction” and remain disqualified for another six years after serving time.
This effectively means that Rahul will not be able to contest for the next 8 years in case the higher court upholds the conviction.
In 2019, Rahul was elected as an MP from the Wayanad constituency in Kerala.
Can past judgments offer relief?
Rahul can draw comfort from the October 17, 2022 judgment of the SC in the Manoj Tiwari vs Manish Sisodia case, where BJP leaders Tiwari and Vijender Gupta had challenged summons issued to them by a Delhi court in a criminal defamation case filed by the former Delhi deputy CM. The court had differentiated the statements made by Tiwari and Gupta. While Tiwari had made a specific Rs 2,000 crore corruption allegation against Sisodia, Gupta had merely said he would expose the scam.
Quashing the case against Gupta, the SC had said, “We are afraid that even if a person belonging to a political party had challenged a person holding public office by stating ‘I will expose your scam’, the same may not amount to defamation. Defamatory statement should be specific and not very vague and general. The essential ingredient of Section 499 is that the imputation made by the accused should have the potential to harm the reputation of the person against whom the imputation is made.”
Before the Gujarat HC or SC, Gandhi could argue that his statement — “How come all the thieves have Modi as the common surname?” — was generic and not targeted at any individual and that it was meant to highlight how scamsters had slipped out of the country. The plea questioning the jurisdiction of Surat court may not hold much water as the IPC or CrPC do not stipulate jurisdictional limitations.
What is the defamation case against Rahul Gandhi?
BJP MLA and former Gujarat minister Purnesh Modi had filed a criminal defamation case against Rahul in 2019 over his remark at an election rally in Karnataka: “How come all thieves have the Modi surname?”
Purnesh claimed that the reference had defamed the entire Modi community.
Chief judicial magistrate HH Varma held Rahul guilty of criminal defamation under sections 499 and 500 of the IPC.
The court said the duration of the jail term, the minimum required for disqualification as an elected representative to kick in, was to stress the gravity of the defamation offence.
Courts have traditionally raised the bar in defamation cases with regard to speeches made during political campaign.