Rahul Gandhi acquitted in 2018 defamation case over remarks about Amit Shah
The Congress leader’s statement that the home minister was a ‘murder accused’ was not defamatory, the court held.
Black News 
A court in Uttar Pradesh’s Sultanpur on Monday acquitted Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in a criminal defamation case over his 2018 remarks referring to Union Home Minister Amit Shah as a “murder accused”, Bar and Bench reported.
Gandhi was present in court when Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Shubham Verma pronounced the verdict. The court said the remarks were not defamatory in nature.
The case was filed in August 2018 on a complaint by Bharatiya Janata Party leader Vijay Mishra, who alleged that Gandhi had made objectionable remarks against Shah at a press conference in Bengaluru on May 8, 2018, during the Karnataka elections. Shah was the BJP’s national president at the time.
Gandhi had said that the BJP claimed to believe in clean politics but had a party president who was a “murder accused”, in an apparent reference to the 2005 Sohrabuddin Sheikh case.
In February 2014, a special court in Mumbai had discharged Shah in the case involving the alleged extra-judicial killing of Sheikh.
While Gandhi was on way to the special court his convoy had met with a minor accident on the Purvanchal Expressway. Five vehicles travelling behind his car collided with an ambulance. Gandhi was unhurt, while several people were reportedly injured.
Edited by Anamika Pathak.
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