A Surat court convicted and sentenced Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on March 23 but his legal team is yet to make any move. It is likely that the ace lawyers in Congress were waiting to see the outcome of NCP leader Mohammad Faizal’s case. The Lok Sabha membership of the MP from Lakshadweep was restored on Wednesday.
New Delhi,UPDATED: Mar 29, 2023 15:53 IST
The conviction and the sentencing of Rahul Gandhi to a two-year prison term on March 23 led to the Congress leader being disqualified as a Lok Sabha MP. (Image: Vani Gupta)
By India Today Web Desk: It has been almost a week since a Surat court convicted and sentenced Congress leader Rahul Gandhi but his legal team is yet to make any move. It is likely the legal eagles in his camp were waiting to see the outcome of NCP leader Mohammad Faizal’s case. And the outcome is definitely going to cheer them up.
The conviction and the sentencing of Rahul Gandhi to a two-year prison term on March 23 led to the Congress leader being disqualified as a Lok Sabha MP. He was a member of Parliament from Kerala’s Wayanad.
It was expected that Rahul Gandhi and his team would be adopting a two-pronged legal strategy: One before the sessions court — challenging the conviction — and one before the Supreme Court — challenging the disqualification and seeking a stay on the byelections for the Wayanad seat. But it is now being assumed that they will be challenging the conviction and sentencing in higher courts and not challenge his disqualification from the Lok Sabha.
On Wednesday, the Lok Sabha secretariat restored the membership of NCP leader Mohammad Faizal. Mohammad Faizal was disqualified from the House in January this year, following his conviction in a criminal case with a 10-year jail term.
Ace lawyers in Congress, including Abhishek Singhvi, Salman Khurshid and P Chidambaram, haven’t made any move on Rahul Gandhi’s case yet.
Senior advocate and Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi told India Today that the order of the Surat court was 172-page long and in Gujarati, which would take time to be translated and studied.
Political observers say that Congress brass was also waiting to see if the Election Commission would club the Wayanad bypoll with the Karnataka Assembly election. The poll body refraining from announcing a date for Wayanad bypolls has given the party more time to plot its legal moves.
Following Mohammad Faizal’s disqualification, the Election Commission on January 18 announced byelections to the Lakshadweep parliamentary seat.
Mohammad Faizal had moved the Supreme Court on Tuesday seeking revocation of his disqualification from the Lok Sabha, contending that the Kerala High Court had stayed his conviction in an attempt-to-murder case.
Senior advocate and Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi represented Mohammad Faizal’s case in the Supreme Court.
Singhvi is likely to be a key member in the team that is working on the legal fightback in Rahul Gandhi’s conviction in the criminal defamation case over his ‘Modi surname’ remarks at a poll rally in Karnataka ahead of the 2019 general election.
The stay on Mohammad Faizal’s conviction by the high court and his subsequent reinstatement as an MP of the Lok Sabha is going to be a boost for Rahul Gandhi and his legal team.
But what has to be borne in mind is that the cases of Rahul Gandhi and Mohammad Faizal aren’t similar and neither does the outcome in the Faizal case set any precedence in the Congress leader’s case.
Faizal was disqualified from Lok Sabha on January 13, after he and three others were sentenced to 10-year rigorous imprisonment and fined Rs 1 lakh each by a sessions court in Kavaratti for attempting to murder Mohammed Salih, son-in-law of the late Union Minister PM Sayeed, during the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.
