Magistrate Tushar Waze also granted Gandhi exemption from personal appearance after his lawyer Shrikant Shivde moved a plea stating that the Congress leader was busy with Uttar Pradesh elections.
The case against Gandhi was filed by a local RSS functionary Rajesh Kunte over the former’s speech in Bhiwandi on March 6, 2014 in the run up to the Lok Sabha polls. In his address, Gandhi had allegedly claimed, “RSS people had killed (Mahatma) Gandhi.”
When the proceedings began today, Shivde told the court that he has still not received the complete newspaper clippings (of the publications which had reported the Congress leader’s speech at the rally) from the complainant.
Kunte’s lawyer Nandu Phadke then handed over those to Shivde in the court itself.
At the last hearing on January 30, Gandhi’s counsel had told the court that the complete set of newspaper reports, on which the complainant had relied, had not been provided to him. The court had then directed that it should be done and scheduled the next hearing for today for recording his plea.
Today, Shivde also sought a copy of the CD containing Gandhi’s speech from the court. The police, while probing the case had obtained the copies of the CD from the local election office. Magistrate Vaze directed the court clerk to copy the contents of the CD and give one each to Shivde and Phadke at the next hearing.
The Bhiwandi court had granted bail to Gandhi in the case last November.
Earlier, the Supreme Court had refused to interfere with the criminal proceedings pending against him before the trial court, forcing him to withdraw his appeal against the Bombay High Court judgment refusing to quash the defamation case and summons issued to him by the trial court.
The apex court had also declined Gandhi’s plea that he be exempted from personal appearance before the Bhiwandi court, which had taken cognizance of the complaint and issued summons to him as an accused in the case.
PTI