Sultanpur (UP), Jun 30 The hearing in the matching of voice of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will now be held on Wednesday, his lawyer said on Tuesday, the day the matter was listed for hearing.
Gandhi's counsel Kashi Prasad Shukla said that arguments in this case were scheduled to take place in the court of ADJ-5 on Tuesday but the hearing was adjourned on the request of the plaintiff's lawyer Santosh Kumar Pandey. The matter will now be heard on Wednesday.
The hearing in the defamation case against 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 said.
The case dates back to 2018, when local 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 has been 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 requested the 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.
