A court in Uttar Pradesh's Sultanpur on Monday acquitted Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi in a criminal defamation case over his 2018 remarks referring to Union Home Minister Amit Shah as an accused in a murder case.

Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Shubham Verma, who pronounced the verdict in Gandhi's presence, held that the remarks did not constitute defamation.

BJP leader Vinay Mishra filed the complaint against Gandhi in 2018 under Sections 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The complaint concerned remarks Gandhi made during the Karnataka Assembly election campaign, in which he referred to Shah as an accused in a murder case.

Speaking in Bengaluru, Gandhi had said that the BJP president was an accused in a murder case and questioned the party's claims of honesty and decency. His remarks referred to the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case, in which a special CBI court discharged Shah in 2014.

Gandhi has faced other criminal defamation proceedings over his political remarks. In 2023, a Gujarat court convicted him and sentenced him to two years' imprisonment for his 2019 statement, "All thieves have Modi surname," made at an election rally in Karnataka's Kolar constituency. The remarks linked Prime Minister Narendra Modi's surname to fugitives Nirav Modi and Lalit Modi.

Following that conviction, Gandhi, who was then the Lok Sabha MP from Wayanad, was disqualified from Parliament. However, the Supreme Court subsequently stayed his conviction, allowing him to continue as a Member of Parliament.

Senior Advocate RS Cheema, along with advocates Kashi Shukla, Tarannum Cheema, Prasanna S and Akash Singh, appeared for Gandhi.