Indian court gives bail to Rahul Gandhi in defamation case

A court in the western Indian state of Maharashtra Wednesday gave bail to the country's main opposition Congress party's second-in-command Rahul Gandhi, the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family, in a defamation case.

The judicial magistrate granted 45-year-old Gandhi bail in the case moments after he appeared in the court in the state's Bhiwandi town in the morning. The next date of hearing of the defamation case has been slated for January next year.

The case was filed by an activist of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's ideological mentor Rashtriya Swamsevak Sangh (RSS) over Gandhi's comments blaming RSS for pre-independence icon Mahatma Gandhi's assassination in 1948 at an election rally in the same town in 2014.

India's Supreme Court had earlier stayed proceedings against Gandhi in the case after he had approached it for dismissing the same.

The RSS has said that it may withdraw the case if Gandhi publicly says that he does not blame the organization for Mahatman Gandhi's death. However, Gandhi had told the Supreme Court that he stood by his words spoken at the election rally.

"I stand by each and every word. I will never take my words back... I am ready to go to trial," he said, even after the court rejected his request to waive off his personal appearance before the court in Maharashtra.

Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated in a garden on Jan. 30, 1948, while he was on his way to address a prayer meeting. He was shot thrice by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu nationalist. Godse and his co-conspirator were tried and executed in 1949. Endit