The Supreme Court on Monday stayed proceedings in a trial court against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in a criminal defamation case filed about his remarks against Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Live Law reported.

A bench comprising Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta passed the interim order in a special leave petition filed by Gandhi challenging the Jharkhand High Court judgement that dismissed his plea to quash the case.

The court asked the Jharkhand government and the complainant to file their responses to Gandhi’s plea to quash the case, Bar and Bench reported.

Lawyer Abhishek Singhvi, representing the leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha, contended that there are several judgements that hold that only the aggrieved person can file a criminal defamation complaint.

The complaint cannot be filed by a proxy third party, Singhvi argued.

The complaint against Gandhi had been filed by Bharatiya Janata Party leader Navin Jha, Live Law reported. He alleged that Gandhi, at an All India Congress Committee plenary session in March 2018, called Amit Shah a “murder accused”, in an apparent reference to the Sohrabuddin Sheikh case.

Shah was the BJP’s national president at the time.

In February 2014, a special court in Mumbai had discharged Shah in a case from 2005 involving the alleged extra-judicial killing of a man named Sohrabuddin Sheikh.

Jha had also objected to Gandhi’s remark that BJP leaders were liars and were “drunk with power”. The BJP member claimed that the comment was an insult to all members of his party.

High Court verdict

In 2024, the Jharkhand High Court bench of Justice Ambuj Nath had dismissed a plea by Gandhi to quash the case against him, saying that the remarks were “prima facie defamatory in nature”.

The court had held that the complainant had the right to file the defamation complaint, as he was a BJP worker.

The High Court also took note of Gandhi’s statement that the BJP leadership was drunk with power and was composed of liars.

“It further means that the party workers of Bhartiya Janata Party will accept such person/persons as their leader,” the court had said. “This imputation is prima facie defamatory in nature.”