New Delhi: The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court Thursday decisively dismissed a petition seeking a writ of quo warranto—that challenges the right of a person to hold a public office—against senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, affirming his continued eligibility to serve as a Member of Parliament from Rae Bareli.
The court ruled that with the Supreme Court having stayed Gandhi’s conviction in a 2019 criminal defamation case against him, the immediate basis for disqualification did not exist.
The order was delivered by a division bench comprising Justices S. B. Saraf and M. Shukla. It said that the Supreme Court’s stay of conviction in 2023 effectively nullified the grounds invoked by the petitioner to challenge Gandhi’s right to hold office.
The petition, filed by Ashok Pandey, sought to question the authority under which Gandhi currently occupies his Lok Sabha seat.
Pandey argued that Gandhi stood disqualified from being chosen or continuing as an MP under Article 102 of the Constitution, read with Section 8(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, after a trial court in Gujarat had convicted him for defamation under Section 499 of the erstwhile Indian Penal Code and sentenced him to two years’ imprisonment.
Since Gandhi was subsequently declared the winner from Rae Bareli in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and assumed office as both MP and Leader of the Opposition, the petitioner contended that he was “usurping” a public position without legal authority.
Section 8(3) of the R.P. Act mandates automatic disqualification for any person convicted of an offence and sentenced to imprisonment for not less than two years.
While the Gujarat High Court refused to stay the conviction, the Supreme Court stayed the order pending appeal, noting that the trial judge had given no justification for imposing the maximum sentence, which alone activated the disqualification clause.
Pandey argued that this stay was insufficient for restoring Gandhi’s status, citing the case of BSP MP Afzal Ansari, where the Supreme Court had suspended his conviction and specifically permitted him to contest future elections. According to the petitioner, a similarly explicit order was needed in Gandhi’s case.
Rejecting the petitioner’s submissions, the HC relied on established Supreme Court precedent, including Lily Thomas vs Union of India and Ravikant S. Patil vs Sarvabhouma S. Bagali. The bench observed that the legal position was “categorically settled”: once a conviction is stayed, the disqualification under Section 8(3) no longer operates.
The judges drew a clear distinction between stay on only the sentence and stay on the conviction itself. A stay on conviction renders it inoperative from the date of stay, meaning the disqualification “ceases to operate”.
The moment a higher court stays a conviction, the court said, “the anathema of conviction goes out of the window”, and the person cannot be regarded as a convicted individual until the appeal is finally adjudicated.
Finding no merit in the petition, the HC dismissed it, bringing clarity to Gandhi’s legal standing as an elected representative in the current Lok Sabha.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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