Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Saturday said that certain parts of the Supreme Court's judgment, which stayed the conviction of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in a defamation case, were not highlighted amidst "so-called celebrations".
The senior BJP leader posted on Twitter parts of the verdict, including the one in which the apex court asked 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.
Sarma said 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 also pointed out that in Para 12, ''the Hon'ble SC makes it clear that the stay will not influence the ongoing appeal process at the lower court''.
Following the Supreme Court's decision on Friday, Sarma had said in a cryptic tweet, without mentioning Gandhi's name, that the judiciary is abused when convicted but is celebrated when it grants bail.
"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 had said. The Congress had expressed gratitude to the Supreme Court for delivering justice and claimed that it had paved the way for Gandhi to return to Parliament and continue placing the problems of the people before the government.
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.
