Magistrate Tushar Waze also granted Gandhi exemption from personal appearance after his lawyer Shrikant Shivde moved a plea stating that the Congress leader was busy with Uttar Pradesh elections.
The case against Gandhi was filed by a local RSS functionary Rajesh Kunte over the former's speech in Bhiwandi on March 6, 2014 in the run up to the Lok Sabha polls. In his address, Gandhi had allegedly claimed, "RSS people had killed (Mahatma) Gandhi."
Kunte's lawyer Nandu Phadke then handed over those to Shivde in the court itself.
At the last hearing on January 30, Gandhi's counsel had told the court that the complete set of newspaper reports, on which the complainant had relied, had not been provided to him. The court had then directed that it should be done and scheduled the next hearing for today for recording his plea.
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The Bhiwandi court had granted bail to Gandhi in the case last November.
Earlier, the Supreme Court had refused to interfere with the criminal proceedings pending against him before the trial court, forcing him to withdraw his appeal against the Bombay High Court judgment refusing to quash the defamation case and summons issued to him by the trial court.
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