Fact check: Lawyer, not judge, took selfie with Rahul Gandhi in Lucknow court

New Delhi: BJP’s IT Cell in-charge Amit Malviya posted and later deleted a tweet claiming that the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Alok Verma took a selfie with former Congress president Rahul Gandhi after granting him bail in the defamation case on Tuesday.

However, by then, the post on X had gone viral, with netizens criticising the “judge” for his actions.

Some fact-checkers later discovered that the so-called “judge” mentioned in Malviya’s post was a lawyer, and not Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Alok Verma.

Verma’s picture given on the website of the District and Sessions Court Lucknow, clearly shows that it was not he taking the selfie with Gandhi, but some other person.

An X user later claimed that the person taking the selfie is advocate Syed Mahmood Hassan.

Earlier in the day, Verma granted bail to the Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi after he made an appearance in a defamation case filed over his purported remarks on Army personnel.

The case relates to alleged defamatory remarks against Indian soldiers made during his Bharat Jodo Yatra in 2022.