Justice S Sunil Dutt Yadav allowed a writ petition filed by Gandhi, also the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, and said in his judgment that permitting the defamation proceedings to continue would “amount to an abuse of the process of law”.
BJP general secretary Keshav Prasad had filed a defamation case against Gandhi, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president and deputy chief minister DK Shivakumar and chief minister Siddaramaiah (then the leader of the opposition) ahead of the May 2023 assembly election in connection with a Congress campaign targeting the then BJP CM Basavaraj Bommai.
The Congress’ ‘PayCM’ campaign featured rate cards of bribes that the party alleged had to be paid to ministers in the then BJP government to get work done. It had alleged that every post had “rates” under the BJP regime, including ₹2,500 crore for the chief minister’s post and ₹500 crore for a minister’s post. Gandhi, the complaint said, had reposted them on social media platform X. Gandhi, however, maintained before the high court that there was no material linking him to the alleged publication or posts which the BJP alleged were defamatory. While Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar got bail in the case earlier, after they personally appeared before the judge, Gandhi got the bail later after he appeared before the judge in June 2024.
