A city magistrate court on Friday issued and then cancelled a non-bailable warrant (NBW) it had issued earlier in the day against Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut in a defamation case filed by Medha Somaiya after he appeared before it.
The case emerged due to allegations Raut had made against the complainant regarding corruption in an NGO she is associated with. On Friday, Raut did not appear before the court and his advocate made an application for exempting him. The court rejected this plea. The complainant’s advocate Vivekanand Gupta then made a plea to issue an NBW against Raut due to his non-appearance. Magistrate PI Mokashi then passed an order directing that the warrant be issued.
The court on Friday recorded the complainant’s statement and then deferred the recording of her statement to Jan 24 on the request of her advocate.
This is the second time the court has issued a warrant against Raut. In July last year, the court had issued a bailable warrant of Rs5,000 against him. A few days later, Raut had appeared before the court and it had been cancelled.
Somaiya, a professor at Ramnarain Ruia College, had approached the court with a private complaint and sought that Raut be tried for defaming her. She complained that he had made statements against her in April last year in the media regarding her NGO Yuvak Pratishthan, accusing it for involvement in corrupt activities in connection with the construction of public toilets.
