Congress leader Rahul Gandhi appeared before a magistrate court on Friday to record his statement about the defamation case filed against him over his remark about the ‘Modi surname’ during a campaign rally in 2019.
He has already appeared before the court 2 times.
During Friday’s hearing, he replied ‘ I don’t know’ to most of the questions that were asked.
The questions were asked based on the recent testimonies of 2 witnesses – the electoral officer of Kolar, Karnataka and videographer appointed by the EC (election commission).
He replied that he didn’t know about the appointment of Arun Kumar as the videographer of the rally.
He gave a similar reply after he was asked about other technical details like the video that was stored on that computer. Gandhi had appeared before the court on June 24 this year and he was asked to appear again on October 29 after the two testimonies were recorded.
The first time he appeared on the court for this case was October 2019 and he pleaded not guilty.
Local BJP MLA Purnesh Modi had lodged a complaint under the Indian Penal Code sections 499 and 500 which deal with defamation in October 2019. Purnesh Modi is now a minister of the Gujarat state government.
Purnesh Modi alleged that while addressing a poll rally, Gandhi defamed the entire Modi community by stating that how can all thieves have Modi as a common surname.
He mentioned this during the Lok Sabha polls rally in April 2019 where he said Nirav Modi, Lalit Modi, Narendra Modi all have common surnames.
On Friday, Purnesh Modi’s lawyers also applied to seek Chandrappa as a witness. Today, the decision will be taken.
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