Lucknow, July 16 -- A court in Lucknow on Tuesday granted bail to leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi after he made an appearance in a defamation case filed over his purported derogatory remarks on Army personnel made during the Bharat Jodo Yatra in December 2022, a lawyer familiar with the matter said. The bail was effected after the Congress lawmaker furnished a bail bond and sureties of Rs.20,000 each as directed by the court of additional chief judicial magistrate Alok Varma. The court had summoned Gandhi to appear in person after he failed to do so in the previous five hearings. His lawyer Pranshu Agrawal had requested an exemption from personal appearance, but the court rejected it. Gandhi appeared in a courtroom full of lawyers. The former Congress president was accompanied by the party's Uttar Pradesh unit chief Ajay Rai and state in-charge Avinash Pande, even as security was heightened along the route of his travel and in the court premises. The defamation complaint was filed by one Uday Shankar Srivastava, a retired director of the Border Roads Organisation (equivalent to the rank of colonel in the Army). The complaint stated that on December 16, 2022, Gandhi, while addressing the media and the public....