Sultanpur (UP), Oct 6 A special court here heard arguments in a defamation case against Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha and Raebareli MP Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday.
Santosh Kumar Pandey, counsel for the complainant and local BJP leader Vijay Mishra, resumed arguments in the case, but the hearing could not be completed.
Special Judge Shubham Verma then fixed October 7 as the date of next hearing, Pandey said.
Pandey began his arguments on September 21, but could not complete them. The court subsequently fixed September 29 for further hearing.
However, the hearing could not take place on September 29 due to the death of a senior advocate, and was scheduled for October 1.
The case pertains to alleged objectionable remarks made by Gandhi in 2018 against then BJP national president and now Union Home Minister Amit Shah during an election campaign in Bengaluru.
Mishra, a former chairman of the district cooperative bank and a BJP politician, had filed a defamation complaint against Gandhi on August 4, 2018.
On November 27, 2023, the court summoned Gandhi to face trial. Gandhi subsequently appeared before the court and secured bail.
Mishra later moved an application seeking comparison of Gandhi's voice sample, which was rejected by the trial court. A revision petition against the order was also dismissed by the sessions court.
The Allahabad High Court also dismissed Mishra's petition challenging the orders of the trial court and the sessions court. It rejected his plea for matching Gandhi's voice sample with the sample examined by the forensic science laboratory.
