Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Saturday (August 5) hit out at Congress over the Supreme Court verdict on Rahul Gandhi which stayed his conviction in the defamation case, and said that certain parts of the top court’s judgment were not highlighted amidst “so-called celebrations”.
The Chief Minister shared certain parts of the verdict on Twitter, including the one which asked Rahul Gandhi to exercise restraint while making public speeches.
''Para 8 -- the Supreme Court states - the utterances by Rahul Gandhi are not in good taste. A person in public life is expected to exercise a degree of restraint while making public speeches and he ought to have been more careful," he tweeted.
The senior BJP leader said that the Supreme Court’s order has a “clear reference to Rahul Gandhi’s 2019 contempt case”.
“The order has a clear reference to Rahul Gandhi’s 2019 contempt case in the Hon'ble Supreme Court underlining his credibility as a repeat offender,” he tweeted.
“Para 12,the Hon'ble SC makes it clear that the stay will not influence the ongoing appeal process at the lower court,” he pointed out.
Earlier on Friday when the top court gave relief to the former Congress president, Sarma termed the Congress celebration of the verdict “heights of duplicity”.
“Heights of duplicity! You abuse the judiciary when you get convicted, and when the same judiciary grants you bail, you say justice has prevailed,” he tweeted.
The Congress party has expressed its gratitude to the SC for the verdict and termed it “victory of love against hate”.
The party claimed that it paved Gandhi’s way back to the Parliament from where he was disqualified following his conviction in the Modi surname case by the Gujarat court.
The Supreme Court stayed a Gujarat High Court verdict which dismissed his plea seeking a stay on his conviction by a lower court in a defamation case over his remark related to "Modi surname".
Former Gujarat minister Purnesh Modi had filed a criminal defamation case in 2019 against Gandhi over his remark made during an election rally in Kolar in Karnataka on April 13, 2019.
Besides Purnesh Modi, many other BJP leaders had filed defamation suits across the country.
(With PTI inputs)
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