The High Court of Kerala has stayed the criminal proceedings before the Chief Judicial Magistrate, in the case registered against four personal assistants (PAs) of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in a case filed against them for vandalizing a portrait of Mahatma Gandhi placed in Rahul Gandhis’s Wayanad Office in 2022.
The interim order was passed by Justice Raja Vijayaraghavan after staying the proceedings before the lower court against Ratheesh Kumar KR, Mujeeb KA, Rahul Sujatha Ravindran and Noushad V for a period of two months.
The order was passed on plea put forward by the four accused seeking quashing of the case against them.
As per media reports,a protest march was taken on 24 July,2022 by the Students Federation of India (SFI), against Rahul Gandhi turned violent as a group of protestors allegedly entered Rahul Gandhi’s office and vandalized it.
A case was registered on June 24, 2022 against certain individuals owing allegiance to SFI.
However, later another case was registered under Section 153 (wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) against unnamed individuals for causing damage to the photograph of Mahatma Gandhi kept inside the office of Rahul Gandhi who was then the Member of Parliament representing Wayanad.
The counsel for the petitioners submitted that this second case was a counterblast to the first case and the PAs of Rahul Gandhi were added as accused in this second case later.
Referring to the materials submitted by the prosecution, the petitioner’s counsel further contended that there was no evidence and none of the witnesses had attributed any role to the petitioners.