An MP-MLA court In Uttar Pradesh's Sultanpur has fixed the next hearing date for the 2018 defamation case against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on June 7.
The defamation complaint was filed against Gandhi by BJP leader Vijay Mishra, over his alleged objectionable remarks against Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
The date was decided after Gandhi's lawyer Kashi Prasad Shukla, filed an application in the UP court, saying the Raebareli candidate was busy campaigning for the ongoing Lok Sabha elections and needed some time to appear before the court, news agency PTI reported.
Thereafter, Judge Shubham Verma fixed the next date of hearing as June 7.
The plaintiff's lawyer Santosh Kumar Pandey, referring to the application filed by Gandhi's lawyer, told the court that he is "running away from the court".
Last year, in December, the court had issued a warrant against Gandhi after which the Congress leader halted his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in Amethi, appearing before the court on February 20.
Rahul Gandhi was granted bail by the court then.
BJP's Vijay Mishra had filed the complaint six years ago on August 4, 2018, against Gandhi over his alleged objectionable comments against Shah during a press conference in Bengaluru during Karnataka elections.
Gandhi had commented that the saffron party claims to believe in honest and clean politics but has a party president who is a murder case "accused".
At that time, Union Home Minister Amit Shah was BJP's president.
Four years before Rahul Gandhi's remark, a special CBI court in Mumbai had already discharged Shah in the case he was refering to at the time of making the remark BJP. Shah had been accused in a 2005 fake encounter case when he was Gujarat's minister of state for home.
On May 2, it was decided that the hearing in the case, would be held on May 14 as no judge was assigned to the MP-MLA court.