Rahul Gandhi appears before court in defamation case

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi today appeared before a court in Mumbai in connection with a defamation case filed against him by a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or RSS worker and pleaded not guilty to the charge. 

The Mazgaon Metropolitan Magistrate's court had in February this year issued summons to Rahul Gandhi and CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury in response to a complaint filed by Dhrutiman Joshi, a lawyer and worker of the RSS who filed a defamation case against them for allegedly linking the organisation to the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh in Bengaluru, reports our New Delhi correspondent.

The court had issued a summons against Rahul and Yechury for their alleged defamatory comments linking journalist Lankesh's killing with the "BJP-RSS ideology".

The RSS is the spiritual fountainhead of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, reports the correspondent.

Gauri Lankesh was shot dead outside her house in Bengaluru in September 2017 allegedly by members of a right-wing extremist group.

In his complaint, Dhrutiman Joshi alleged that after the murder, which took place on evening of September 6, 2017, Rahul Gandhi said that "anybody who speaks against the ideology of the BJP, against the ideology of the RSS is pressured, beaten, attacked and even killed".

The complaint alleged that Yechury said that it was "RSS ideology and RSS men" who killed the journalist.

Rahul is facing another defamation case at Bhiwandi in Thane district near Mumbai filed by a local RSS worker for allegedly blaming the Sangh for Mahatma Gandhi's assassination.