Setback mounts for Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in his legal battle to annul the conviction that was ruled on him by a court in Gujarat, which pushed him to lose his Lok Sabha MP post. Rahul Gandhi was convicted in the criminal defamation case earlier this March and he was awarded a two-year prison sentence with a penalty. However, he has moved his appeal to the Gujarat High Court, which now gave him another setback by refusing to stay his conviction. 

With the latest legal backlash, Rahul Gandhi's prospects to get reinstated as a Lok Sabha MP plunges and with the next general election is months away, he could be barred from contesting in the polls if any of his appeals against the Gujarat High Court verdict fail again. In what has become a closely-watched case, the High Court has on Friday - July 7 given a ruling against Rahul Gandhi by noting that the sessions court has delivered a proper judgment. 

The High Court has also observed that Rahul Gandhi has ten criminal defamations complaints against him and the court further stated that the order issued by the sessions court didn't warrant any interference in the matter. According to LiveLaw, the High Court judge said, "Gandhi is seeking a stay on conviction on absolutely non-existent grounds. Stay on conviction is not a rule. As many as ten cases are pending against Gandhi." 

The High Court further noted, "It is needed to have purity in politics. A complaint has been filed against Gandhi by the grandson of Veer Savarkar in Pune Court after Gandhi used terms against Veer Savarkar at Cambridge. Refusal to stay conviction would not in any way result in injustice to the applicant. There are no reasonable grounds to stay conviction. The conviction is just, proper, and legal."

On March 23 this year, Rahul Gandhi was found guilty by a Gujarat Court in a criminal defamation case that was connected to his statement he made in 2019. During an election campaign in Karnataka's Kolar in 2019, Rahul Gandhi asked, "how come all the thieves have Modi as common surname?". He likened Narendra Modi to the fugitives Nirav Modi and Lalit Modi. However, irked by his statement, a Gujarat BJP MLA, Purnesh Modi filed a complaint against Rahul Gandhi by claiming that his statement had hurt the entire Modi community. 

Delivering the verdict in this criminal defamation case, the Gujarat Court on March 23 found Rahul Gandhi guilty of criminal defamation and awarded him a two-year prison sentence. The court had later granted bail to Gandhi, allowing him to go for an appeal. However, the criminal conviction wasn't stayed due to which the Congress leader was disqualified as a Lok Sabha MP. 

The disqualification was warranted under the Representation of the People Act, which says that if an elected representative both MLA and MP is convicted in the case with two or more years of prison sentence, he/she would be disqualified with immediate effect. In the wake of the conviction, Rahul Gandhi was disqualified as an MP and later, he was directed to vacate the bungalow in Delhi that was allotted to him after getting elected as an MP. 

Rahul Gandhi was elected from Wayanad, Kerala, in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and soon after his disqualification, the Election Commission has declared the Wayanad seat vacant. Rahul Gandhi had waged a legal battle against his conviction and on April 20, a Surat Court dismissed Gandhi's appeal for the suspension of his conviction after which he appealed to the Gujarat High Court. However, the High Court has now given him another setback by refusing to stay his conviction.