Rahul Gandhi Granted Bail in Defamation Case for Comments Against Amit Shah in 2018

Lucknow: A special court in Uttar Pradesh’s Sultanpur on Tuesday granted bail to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in a defamation case over his reference to Union Home Minister Amit Shah as a murder accused in 2018.

The court granted bail to Rahul Gandhi on a surety of Rs 25,000 and a personal bond of the same amount. The Congress leader pleaded innocence in court, saying he had not made any defamatory statement.

It was alleged that Rahul Gandhi made this comment against Amit Shah at a press conference in Bengaluru during the 2018 Karnataka assembly elections. BJP leader Vijay Mishra filed the defamation case against Rahul Gandhi on August 4, 2018, accusing him to be tarnishing Shah’s image.

Mishra cited Gandhi’s statement that the BJP, despite claiming to follow clean politics, had a party president who was an “accused” in a murder case. At the time of Rahul Gandhi’s remarks, Shah was the BJP president.

But a special CBI court in Mumbai had discharged Shah in 2014 from a 2005 fake encounter case, in which he was accused while serving as the Gujarat Home Minister.