A magistrate’s court in Mumbai convicted Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut on Thursday in a defamation case filed by Medha Somaiya, the wife of former BJP MP Kirit Somaiya.
Lawyer Vivekanand Gupta, representing Medha Somaiya, said Raut was found guilty under Section 500 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) by the magistrate court in Mazgaon.
The court has sentenced Raut to 15 days imprisonment and a fine of Rs 25,000, Gupta said.
The case is related to a complaint filed by Medha, a professor of organic chemistry, in which she said Raut had made statements about her on April 15 and April 16, 2022, carried in newspapers, which were defamatory and incorrect. She had submitted documents and video clips claiming that the statements were made by Raut to media channels.
Medha had also sought an unconditional apology and a permanent injunction against Raut, restraining him from publishing, circulating, and printing material defamatory to her, in the future.
In her plea, she said that an article in Sena’s mouthpiece newspaper Saamana accused the Somaiyas of a “toilet scam” in the Mira-Bhayander Municipal Corporation. She said the allegations in the article and other media after the story was published in Saamana were without proof and made with an intention to malign her reputation.
The court issued a summons against Raut in June 2022. The magistrate court reserved the case for judgment earlier on Thursday.
Raut’s lawyers are likely to move court on Thursday to seek suspension of the sentence to give him time to appeal against the conviction.