Won't apologise, not guilty of criminal defamation: Rahul Gandhi to SC

New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi Wednesday told the Supreme Court that he will not apologise for his remark. And if he wanted to compound the offence, he could have done it much earlier.

Gandhi had last month moved the Supreme Court challenging the Gujarat HC's refusal to stay his conviction in a defamation case.

Gandhi was sentenced to two years in jail by a Surat court in March, on a petition filed by MLA Purnesh Modi, who claimed that a 2019 comment by the Congress leader on the Modi surname had defamed the entire Modi community.


Reiterating his stance that he is not guilty of criminal defamation, Gandhi has submitted that the criminal process is being misused to "arm twist" him into "apologising for no fault" of his. He further submitted that such arm twisting is gross abuse of the judicial process and ought not to be countenanced.

Gandhi has further submitted that there is no community or samaj on record by the name 'Modi' and hence, the offence of defaming Modi community as a whole will not arise. His appeal is slated for hearing on Friday. Surat metropolitan magistrate HH Verma had on March 23 sentenced Gandhi to two years in jail - the maximum sentence in such cases - after convicting him for criminal defamation.