Ahmedabad: Gujarat High Court Justice Gita Gopi recused herself from hearing Congress leader  Rahul Gandhi’s appeal petition in a defamation case in which Rahul is sentenced to two years imprisonment by the Surat court. Justice Geeta Gopi directed the court registry to remand the case to the Chief Justice for assignment to a different bench.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, on Tuesday, appealed to the Gujarat high court to stay his conviction by a magisterial court in Surat last month in the ‘Modi surname’ case. He challenged the order passed by a Surat sessions court on April 20 that rejected his request for a stay on the conviction. If the conviction is stayed, Gandhi could regain his position in the Lok Sabha as the representative of Wayanad in Kerala. His Parliament membership was suspended immediately after the magisterial court found him guilty and sentenced him to two years in jail in the defamation case. Although additional sessions judge Robin Mogera declined to stay Gandhi’s conviction, he granted him regular bail and suspended the sentence of two years imprisonment while his appeal is pending.

Gandhi’s lawyer, Pankaj Champaneri, confirmed that he had approached the high court and sent the scanned copies of the revision application to the high court registry, and would file the hard copy of the signed application on Wednesday. In March, Gandhi was sentenced to two years in jail under Sections 499 and 500 of the IPC for his comment during the 2019 Lok Sabha election campaign, where he allegedly made a derogatory remark about people with the ‘Modi’ surname. DeshGujarat