New Delhi, July 31 (Agency) Purnesh Modi, the complainant in Rahul Gandhi defamation case, filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court, calling the Congress leader arrogant and prayed to the apex judiciary not to stay or set aside his conviction. The Supreme Court’s two-judge bench, headed by Justice B R Gavai and also comprising Justice Prashant K Mishra, which had on July 21 issued notice to the respondent, Purnesh Modi and sought his detailed response on Rahul’s appeal, is expected to hear the case further on Friday. “At the time of sentencing before the Trial Court, the Petitioner (Rahul Gandhi) far from being repentant or contrite, displayed arrogance.
He did not seek any mercy from the Court and would not apologise for any harm to reputation of the persons he had defamed. Subsequent to the order of conviction and sentence, in a press conference, Rahul said that he would never apologise in this case as he was not a Savarkar, but a Gandhi,” the affidavit filed by Purnesh Modi said. He also said that on April 10, 2019, three days before the offending speech, Rahul had stated in a large public gathering that the Supreme Court of India “had admitted that Mr. Modi had indulged in corruption”. It was also stated that the Supreme Court had said that chowkidar was a chor. These statements attributed to this Court became subject matter of a contempt petition. “Rahul has maliciously and recklessly used scurrilous words against a large and totally blameless class of persons, of both common surname and common caste, who have caused no harm to him. The statement was made out of personal hatred towards an elected Prime Minister of the country and the extent of hatred was so great that Rahul was impelled to cast grossly defamatory aspersions on persons who incidentally bore the same surname as the Prime Minister,” the affidavit said.
“The Petitioner deserves no sympathy on the question of the sentence imposed,” Purnesh Modi said. The Petitioner was the President of a national- level political party at the time of the offence and a Member of Parliament. It behoves the Petitioner to set high standards of political morality, but he failed in doing so, the affidavit said. “He presumably wanted to suggest that a Gandhi will never apologise even if he/ she has for no justifiable reason slandered an entire class of people. The attitude of the Petitioner disentitles him to any relief in the form of stay of conviction as it reveals arrogant entitlement, rank insensitivity to an offended community and contempt for the law,” Purnesh Modi, said in his affidavit filed before the Supreme Court.