India’s top court is set to hear opposition leader Rahul Gandhi’s plea seeking a stay on his conviction in a defamation case.
The Supreme Court’s decision will determine whether Mr Gandhi can contest national elections next year.
Earlier this month, a court in Gujarat state had dismissed his appeal, saying the conviction was “just and proper”.
Mr Gandhi was sentenced to two years in jail for comments about PM Narendra Modi’s surname at an election rally.
But he cannot be arrested until he has exhausted all legal appeals.
He was also disqualified as an MP after the sentencing, so a verdict in his favour from India’s highest court would also reinstate him as a lawmaker.
Mr Gandhi lost his seat in parliament a day after his conviction in March due to a Supreme Court order which says that a lawmaker convicted in a crime and sentenced to two or more years in jail is disqualified with immediate effect.
The Congress has criticised Mr Gandhi’s conviction and accused Mr Modi’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of political vendetta. The BJP has denied this, saying that due judicial process was followed in the case.
The defamation case against Mr Gandhi, brought by BJP lawmaker Purnesh Modi, revolved around comments Mr Gandhi made in Karnataka state in 2019 during an election rally. “Why do all these thieves have Modi as their surname? Nirav Modi, Lalit Modi, Narendra Modi,” he said.
Nirav Modi is a fugitive Indian diamond tycoon while Lalit Modi is a former chief of the Indian Premier League who has been banned for life by the country’s cricket board.
In his complaint, Purnesh Modi alleged that the comments had defamed the entire Modi community. The Modi surname does not denote any specific community or caste and people from the community mostly reside in the states of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, and Uttar Pradesh.
Mr Gandhi said that he made the comment to highlight corruption and that it was not directed against any community.
A lower court had granted Mr Gandhi bail to appeal against his conviction, but it’s the stay or suspension of his sentence that’s crucial to reinstating him as an MP.
BBC News India is now on YouTube. Click here to subscribe and watch our documentaries, explainers and features.
Read more India stories from the BBC:
