Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s lawyer on Thursday told a Surat court that the trial in his criminal defamation case was not fair as the judge was misled, reported Bar and Bench.

The court was hearing Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s petition seeking a stay on his conviction in the case related to his comments about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s surname.

On March 23, Gandhi was sentenced to two years imprisonment for his speech ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in which he had referred to thieves as having the surname Modi. The Congress leader has been convicted under Sections 499 (defamation) and 500 (punishment for defamation) of the Indian Penal Code. The court, however, granted him bail and suspended his sentence for 30 days.

A day after his conviction, Gandhi was disqualified as a Lok Sabha MP under the Representation of the People Act, 1951. According to Section 8(3) of the law, a legislator sentenced to jail for two years or more stands to be disqualified from the date of conviction till six years after serving time.

Gandhi’s disqualification from the Lok Sabha will be revoked if the court stays his conviction.

On April 3, the Surat court had extended his bail till April 13.

At Thursday’s trial, Senior advocate RS Cheema appearing for Gandhi argued that the trial court judge had not considered the original speech made by the politician as evidence and rather relied on media reports.

“I have seen a very strange judgement that the trial court judge made a hotchpotch of all the evidence as the newspaper cutting spoke differently to what the speech CD indicated,” Cheema told the court.

He added: “At 11:51 am my client is pronounced guilty and within half an hour he is handed over the harshest and maximum punishment. The judge has said that you are an MP and I want to send a message to society.”

Cheema also expressed his shock at the trial court for its remark that Gandhi did not pay heed to the Supreme Court warning and called him stubborn. “I am sorry I am using strong words but yes the judge was misled and was harsh,” Cheema said.

The senior advocate pointed out that the trial court’s remark about apology was misleading since Gandhi had made the speech about Modi in April 2019 and was pulled by the Supreme Court for another comment in November of that year.

On May 8, 2019, Gandhi had tendered an unconditional apology for attributing the “chowkidar chor hai” slogan for Modi to the Supreme Court in connection with the Rafale jet deal. In November 2019, the court had closed the case but said that Gandhi should not have made political comments without reading the full order given by the court in December 2018, when it had rejected the need for an inquiry into the Rafale jet deal.

“So how can the judge rely on the proceedings where the complainant has said I was admonished by the top court?” Cheema argued at Thursday’s hearing.

The lawyer also said that the trial court knew that if it had punished Gandhi for even one day less, he would not have been disqualified from the Lok Sabha.

Advocate Harshit Tolia, the lawyer of Bharatiya Janata Party’s Purnesh Modi, who had filed the defamation complaint against Gandhi, alleged that the Congress leader is arrogant since he has refused to apologise, reported Bar and Bench.

“Law doesn’t make any difference between ordinary citizens or an MP,” Tolia said. “May be as per his [Gandhi’s] standard these are highly exceptional circumstances but these are the basic circumstances as per the general public.”

He added: “He [Gandhi] was conscious as he was addressing the rally. He addressed PM Modi, was he so childish that he wasn’t aware that referring to the Modi surname would mean all the Modis?”

Meanwhile, Purnesh Modi had filed another application in the Surat court opposing the Congress leader’s plea, Live Law reported on Wednesday.

In his application, Modi alleged that Gandhi tried to put pressure on the court by parading several Congress leaders when he came to Surat earlier this month to file his petition.

State and national level Congress leaders holding a rally in support of Gandhi was a “very dirty display of childish arrogance”, Purnesh Modi said in his plea. The filing of an appeal is a legal formality and it should not be abused to gain political mileage or put pressure on the court, he contended, according to Live Law.