{"id":315559,"date":"2019-10-10T08:38:18","date_gmt":"2019-10-10T08:38:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=315559"},"modified":"2019-10-10T08:38:18","modified_gmt":"2019-10-10T08:38:18","slug":"rahul-gandhi-pleads-not-guilty-in-defamation-case-for-thieves-modi-remark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rahul-gandhi-pleads-not-guilty-in-defamation-case-for-thieves-modi-remark\/","title":{"rendered":"Rahul Gandhi pleads not guilty in Defamation case for &#8216;Thieves-Modi&#8217; remark"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-315560 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/rahul-surat.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"793\" height=\"532\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2019\/10\/rahul-surat.jpg 793w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2019\/10\/rahul-surat-300x201.jpg 300w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2019\/10\/rahul-surat-768x515.jpg 768w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2019\/10\/rahul-surat-696x467.jpg 696w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2019\/10\/rahul-surat-626x420.jpg 626w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 793px) 100vw, 793px\" \/>Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday appeared before a Surat court and pleaded not guilty in a defamation case filed against him for his &#8220;why do all thieves share Modi surname&#8221; remarks.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Rahul said defamation case filed against him were an attempt by his political rivals desperate to silence him.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">\u201cI am in Surat today to appear in a defamation case filed against me by my political opponents, desperate to silence me. I am grateful for the love &amp; support of the Congress workers who have gathered here to express their solidarity with me,\u201d Rahul said in a tweet.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Rahul Gandhi was summoned in May after a complaint was filed by a BJP MLA Purnesh Modi under sections of the Indian Penal Code that deal with criminal defamation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">In his complaint, Purnesh Modi had alleged that Rahul had defamed the Modi community with his remark.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">During the last hearing in July, the court had granted Rahul exemption from personal appearance for that hearing and fixed October 10 as the next date of hearing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Congress declared the case as a &#8220;transparent attempt to silence the truth&#8221;.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">&#8220;Such transparent attempts to silence the truth will never work, the fight against lies &amp; hatred will always be strengthened by sincerity &amp; love,&#8221; the Congress said in a tweet.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday appeared before a Surat court and pleaded not guilty in a defamation case filed against him for his &#8220;why do all thieves share Modi surname&#8221; remarks. Rahul said defamation case filed against him were an attempt by his political rivals desperate to silence him. \u201cI am in Surat today [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":315560,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2838,1801,2014,2026],"tags":[579],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315559"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315559"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":315562,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315559\/revisions\/315562"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/315560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}