Rahul Gandhi to attend proceedings in defamation case by RSS

Mumbai: Rahul Gandhi is expected to attend the proceedings in a court in Bhiwandi, near here, on Wednesday in a criminal defamation case filed against him for claiming, at a 2014 election rally, that the RSS had killed Mahatma Gandhi. The case against the Congress vice president was filed by a local RSS functionary. Rahul, who is scheduled to arrive in the city tomorrow evening, will proceed to Bhiwandi in neighbouring Thane district the next morning to attend the court proceedings beginning at 10 am, Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam said. “Since our leader is arriving in the city, the party workers will welcome him at the airport,” he said. Addressing a rally in the run-up to the 2014 general elections in the powerloom town on the outskirts of Mumbai, Rahul had claimed, “The RSS people had killed Gandhi.” He had, on September 1, preferred to face the trial as an accused in the defamation case for his remark against the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) on the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, submitting before the Supreme Court that he stood by “every word” of his statement. The Congress vice president expressed his readiness to face the trial after the apex court refused to interfere with the criminal proceedings pending against him before the trial court. Rahul then withdrew the appeal filed by him against the Bombay High Court judgment refusing to quash the defamation case and summons issued to him by the trial court. The apex court also declined Rahul’s plea that he be exempted from personal appearance before the Bhiwandi court which had taken cognizance of the complaint of an RSS functionary by summoning him as an accused in the case. —PTI