RANCHI: Jharkhand High Court directed that no coercive action be taken against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in the Modi surname defamation case. The next hearing will be on August 16. Earlier, an MP MLA court in Ranchi had ordered his personal appearance.

Rahul Gandhi, through his lawyers, had moved HC against the MP MLA court's direction on personal appearance.

The case pertained to a remark Rahul Gandhi made on the surname 'Modi' while addressing a campaign event ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. At a rally in Karnataka's Kolar in April 2019, Rahul, in a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said, "How come all the thieves have Modi as the common surname?"

Following his conviction, Rahul Gandhi was disqualified as an MP. As per the Supreme Court's ruling, any MP or MLA is automatically disqualified if convicted and sentenced to two years or more.