A special court in Uttar Pradesh has scheduled March 24 as the hearing date for a defamation case against Rahul Gandhi, Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, concerning his comments on the 2020 Hathras gang-rape incident. Advocate Munna Singh Pundir announced the date following the court session led by Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Deepak Nath Saraswati.
During the session, the court recorded the statement of Ramkumar alias Ramu, one of the four men originally accused of the gang rape but later acquitted. The controversy surrounds Gandhi’s remarks made after visiting the Hathras victim’s family, which led to the filing of defamation charges by the acquitted individuals.
In September 2020, a Dalit girl from Hathras was allegedly gang-raped, succumbing to her injuries days later in a Delhi hospital. Of the accused, three—Ramkumar, Luvkush, and Ravi—have been acquitted, while Sandeep remains incarcerated following his conviction.
Following the incident, Rahul Gandhi was vocal in criticizing the handling of the case by the Uttar Pradesh government, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). On the social media platform X, Gandhi expressed his dismay at the situation, stating, “keeping the victim family locked in the house while gang rape accused roam freely is against the basic spirit of Baba Saheb’s Constitution.”
Gandhi also accused the BJP government of reneging on a promise to relocate the victim’s family to a new home. He pledged that the Congress and INDIA Alliance would assist in renovating the family’s house in alignment with Ambedkar’s constitutional values.
The defamation lawsuit was triggered by Gandhi’s post, leading to three separate complaints lodged by the acquitted men against him. Advocate Pundir highlighted that despite the court’s acquittal of the accused, Gandhi’s statements continued to label them as criminals, which led to the legal action.
