HC Judge Hearing Rahul Gandhi's Appeal in Defamation Case Was Maya Kodnani's Lawyer

The Wire Staff
Apr 30, 2023

The Gujarat high court. Photo: 

New Delhi: Justice Hemant M. Prachak, who is hearing Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s appeal in the Gujarat high court against the session court’s rejection of his application to stay his conviction in the ‘Modi surname’ remark defamation case, was one of the lawyers defending former BJP minister Maya Kodnani, an accused in the 2002 Gujarat riots case.

 April 13, The Wire had reported that Judge Robin Paul Mogera, who was hearing Gandhi’s appeal in the Surat sessions court against his two-year conviction in this defamation case, was Union home minister and BJP leader Amit Shah’s lawyer in the 2006 Tulsiram Prajapati fake encounter case. The report had underlined that Mogera, as a lawyer, represented Shah at least until 2014 when the case was being heard at a Central Bureau of Investigation court in Mumbai.

Hearing the case on April 20, Judge Mogera rejected Gandhi’s appeal against the two-year conviction in the case filed by a Gujarat BJP leader in 2019. The appeal had political implications with direct links to the BJP since the verdict of the sessions court could have helped the opposition leader return to parliament. 

On its heels comes a similar report by The Federal today about Justice Hemant M. Prachak hearing Gandhi’s appeal against the Surat court’s verdict in the Gujarat high court. The news report underlined that Justice Prachak “defended Kodnani in criminal case number 1708/12 against the Special SIT court in one of the cases following riots in Naroda Patiya and Naroda Gam areas of Ahmedabad in February 2002 where more than a hundred Muslims, including women and children, were killed.” It further pointed out, “Noticeably, all the accused of the Naroda Patiya and Naroda Gam cases were acquitted a week back by the Special Court in Gujarat.”