Sitaram Yechury and Rahul Gandhi
Mumbai: Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi and CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury would face trial in the RSS defamation case as Metropolitan Magistrate PI Mokashi on November 23 rejected their applications for quashing the complaint. Both Rahul Gandhi and Sitaram Yechury had linked the RSS to the murder of Gauri Lankesh even before investigations had started.
Advocate Dhrutiman Joshi had sought defamation proceedings against them for defaming the organisation for linking the RSS to the killing of Karnataka-based journalist Gauri Lankesh. In July this year, both Gandhi and Yechury had pleaded ‘not guilty’ to the defamation charges and were successful in getting bail. Now, the two will face trial in the case. The court would be hearing the case next on January 6, 2020.
Gauri Lankesh, who ran a Kannada tabloid, was shot dead outside her house in Bengaluru in September 2017. Even before any investigation started in the case Rahul Gandhi alleged that RSS was involved in the murder. Yechury too stated that it was the RSS’ ideology and RSS people who killed her.
Advocate Dhrutiman Joshi filed the defamation case against them saying that within 24 hours of her death, Rahul and Yechury had addressed the media and defamed the RSS in the murder.
