Sultanpur (UP), Jun 29 The hearing in a defamation case against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over his remarks made against Union Home Minister Amit Shah in 2018 was on Monday deferred once again by a special court in Uttar Pradesh's Sultanpur district, with the next date of hearing fixed for July 6.
The proceedings were adjourned as arguments on a revision petition are pending before the additional district judge's court over a plea seeking a forensic examination of Gandhi's voice by matching it with the audio contained in a CD submitted as evidence in the case, the Congress leader's lawyer, Kashi Prasad Shukla, said.
"The special court has now fixed July 6 as the next date of hearing in the defamation case, while the revision petition before the ADJ's court will be heard on June 30," he said.
The case dates back to 2018, when local Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former chairman of the District Cooperative Bank Vijay Mishra filed a defamation complaint against Gandhi, alleging that during the 2018 Karnataka Assembly polls, the Congress leader made derogatory remarks against Shah, who was then the president of the saffron party.
The trial is going on for five years. In December 2023, a warrant was issued against Gandhi for non-appearance before the court. He surrendered in February 2024, following which a special magistrate granted him bail on two sureties of Rs 25,000 each.
On July 26, 2024, Gandhi got his statement recorded before the court, claiming innocence and terming the case a political conspiracy. Thereafter, the court directed the complainant to produce evidence in the case.
During the hearing, the plaintiff's lawyer, Santosh Kumar Pandey, requested for an examination of Gandhi's actual voice sample and the audio-recording of his statement at the Forensic Sciences Laboratory (FSL).
The lower court rejected the request after which Pandey filed the revision petition in the ADJ's court against the lower court's decision.
