New Delhi, Jul 7 (PTI) Congress leader P Chidambaram Friday said the maximum punishment of two years has never been imposed in a slander case in the 162 years the Indian Penal Code has been in force and alleged the whole purpose of the defamation suit against Rahul Gandhi was to disqualify him from Parliament.

His remarks came after the Gujarat High Court dismissed Gandhi's plea seeking a stay on his conviction in the criminal defamation case over his "Modi surname" remark.

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"The whole purpose of the defamation case against Rahul Gandhi was to disqualify him from Parliament. Everything that followed is an attempt to justify the disqualification," Chidambaram said.

"Let me repeat what I had said earlier: In the 162 years the Indian Penal Code has been in force, there has been no case of slander (verbal defamation) where a court has imposed the maximum punishment of two years. That fact says all about the case and the judgement of the trial court," the former home minister said, adding that one day, justice will be delivered.

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While dismissing the Congress leader's plea, Justice Hemant Prachchhak noted that Gandhi was already facing 10 criminal cases across India, adding that the lower court was "just, proper and legal" in handing over a two-year jail term to Gandhi for his remarks.

A metropolitan magistrate's court in Surat on March 23 had sentenced Gandhi to two years in jail after convicting him under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 499 and 500 (criminal defamation) in a 2019 case filed by BJP Gujarat MLA Purnesh Modi.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)