On Wednesday, May 24, former Rajya Sabha MP and BJP leader Subramaniam Swamy opposed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s plea filed at Rouse Avenue court seeking the issuance of an ordinary passport ahead of his US visit.
This comes after the Gandhi scion filed a plea before the court seeking issuance of a no-objection certificate (NOC) to obtain a fresh ordinary passport. It is pertinent to note that Rahul Gandhi had to surrender his diplomatic passport following his disqualification as Wayanad MP after he was convicted in the ‘Modi’ surname-related defamation case.
Gandhi’s lawyer told Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Vaibhav Mehta that there are no pending criminal cases against him and thus he can be issued a no-objection certificate.
However, the Court ruled that Swamy has the right to respond to Gandhi’s petition. Subsequently, the case was scheduled for a hearing on May 26.
According to Swamy, allowing Gandhi to travel abroad may jeopardize the investigation into the National Herald case.
Reportedly, Rahul Gandhi has a visit planned to the United States, where he would address his first-ever public rally in the US on June 4 at New York’s Madison Square Garden. The public rally will conclude his week-long tour of the United States, which includes a speech at Stanford University.
Notably, Swamy in his private complaint filed in 2012, had accused Sonia and Rahul Gandhi along with their aides— Oscar Fernandez, Motilal Vohra, and Sam Pitroda of conspiring to cheat and misappropriate funds by paying just Rs 50 lakh, through which Young India (YI) had obtained the right to recover Rs 90.25 crore that the Associated Journals Ltd (AJL) owed to the Congress party. The mother-son duo was granted bail in December 2015.
Rahul Gandhi’s conviction in ‘Modi surname’ defamation case
Rahul Gandhi was convicted and sentenced to two years in jail by the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate in Surat on March 23 this year for his defamatory comments against people with Modi surname in a speech in 2019.
A criminal defamation case was filed by Gujarat BJP leader Purnesh Modi after Rahul Gandhi in an election rally had asked why everyone with the Modi surname is a thief, mentioning Nirav Modi, Lalit Modi, and Narendra Modi. Gandhi was convicted under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 499 and 500 (criminal defamation). A day after the conviction, the leader was disqualified from Lok Sabha.
