On Monday, the Patna High Court put a stay on the lower court’s order on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in the ‘Modi surname’ defamation case till May 15. Earlier, the lower court in Patna had asked Rahul Gandhi to appear on April 12 and present his case in connection with a petition filed against him in 2019 by former Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi for Gandhi’s alleged objectionable remarks on ‘Modi surname’.

On April 22, Rahul Gandhi approached the Patna High Court to quash a lower court summons in a defamation case brought against him by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Sushil Kumar Modi.

“We have filed a petition for dismissal. When a matter has already been heard in Surat court, it cannot be tried again in a different court similarly. It is illegal. The next hearing will be on May 15. Held, and all lower court proceedings will be postponed until then,” Rahul Gandhi’s lawyer Virendra Rathore told ANI.

Meanwhile, Sushil Modi’s lawyer, Advocate SD Sanjay, said, “The court has asked him to keep the argument on the matter”.

A Surat court had already convicted Rahul Gandhi for his remarks and disqualified him as an MP for the Lok Sabha. He moved out of his official Tughlaq Lane bungalow on Saturday as agreed. The bungalow was first allocated to him after he won the Lok Sabha election from Amethi in 2004.

When the Congress leader vacated his bungalow and moved into the Delhi residence of his mother, Sonia Gandhi, he said he was paying the “price for speaking the truth”.