The Gujarat High Court on Friday dismissed Rahul Gandhi’s plea for the defamation case against Modi’s surname remark.

With this order, Rahul Gandhi will remain suspended as a Member of Parliament (MP) and is restricted from participating in the elections.

The court said that Rahul Gandhi is a serial offender as at least 10 criminal cases are pending against him, and added that the Trial court conviction order is proper. There is no need to interfere with the said order. “Therefore, the application is dismissed,” said the court

Surat West MLA Purnesh Modi filed a criminal defamation case against Gandhi over his “How come all thieves have Modi as the common surname?” remark made during an election rally at Kolar in Karnataka on April 13, 2019.

A metropolitan magistrate’s court in Surat sentenced the former Congress president to two years in jail on March 23, under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 499 and 500 (criminal defamation) in a 2019 case that Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Purnesh Modi filed.

During a hearing on April 29, Gandhi’s lawyer had argued that a maximum punishment of two years for a bailable offence implies that he could lose his Lok Sabha “permanently and irreversibly,” which is a “very serious additional irreversible consequence to the person and the constituency he represents”.