A court in Maharashtra’s Thane district granted a permanent exemption to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi from appearing before it in a defamation case filed against him by RSS. 

Bhiwandi First Class Judicial Magistrate C Wadikar who heard Gandhi’s application filed through his counsel Narayan Iyer observed that the Congress leader deserves a permanent exemption.

The magistrate also set June 3 for recording evidence in the defamation suit filed by local RSS worker Rajesh Kunte.

Kunte had in 2014 filed a private complaint before the Bhiwandi magistrate’s court after watching Gandhi’s speech where he allegedly accused the RSS of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination. Kunte claimed this statement slandered the reputation of the RSS.

Gandhi had appeared before the court in June 2018 and pleaded not guilty.

“Accused Rahul Rajiv Gandhi is hereby exempted from appearance in the court till the further order passed by the court subject to following conditions,” reads the order, a copy of which was accessed by PTI.

“Accused to undertake that his duly designated advocate punctually and regularly appears before court on each and every scheduled date and conduct the trial in absence of accused,” says one of the conditions. “Accused to remain present in court as and when directed,” 

The MP/MLA court of Special Judicial Magistrate Aadi Dev had passed an order on March 18 asking Gandhi to appear before it on April 12.

However, during hearing on Wednesday, the defence counsel sought another date stating that the entire team was busy with the Surat case, in which Gandhi was sentenced to two years in prison and disqualified from the Lok Sabha. To this, the judge asked Gandhi's counsel to ensure his physical appearance before the court on the next date of hearing in the case on April 25.

Prosecution lawyer Priya Gupta told reporters that statements from the complainant's side have been recorded and all evidence submitted to the court and now only the statement of Gandhi is to be recorded.

A Surat court had recently convicted Gandhi over the purported remark and he was later disqualified as an MP from Lok Sabha.