Don’t take coercive action against Rahul Gandhi in defamation case: Jharkhand High Court 

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi gets a green signal on Tuesday when the Jharkhand High Court ordered that no coercive action should be taken against him in a defamation case filed against him over a Modi surname remark he made in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

The next hearing will be held on August 16.

Advocate Pradeep Modi, who practices in Ranchi, had taken expectation to the Gandhi scion's remark “against Modi community” and filed a Rs 20 crore defamation case against him.

Rahul Gandhi's counsel had filed a criminal writ petition in the Jharkhand High Court to exempt him from personal appearance in the defamation case in an MP-MLA court in Ranchi. The same petition was already rejected by the MP-MLA court.

In March this year, a Surat court in Gujarat convicted Rahul Gandhi in a criminal defamation case against him over the same matter and sentenced him to two years.

A day after the Surat court's judgment, the Congress leader was disqualified as Lok Sabha MP.