A magistrate in Sewree court on Monday issued a bailable warrant against Shiv Sena MP and spokesperson Sanjay Raut as he failed to appear before it in a criminal defamation complaint against him by BJP leader Kirit Somaiya’s wife Medha Somaiya.
Magistrate PI Mokashi has issued a bailable warrant of Rs. 5,000. Raut’s advocate later appeared before the court and sought that the warrant against him be cancelled, but the court rejected the plea. The next date of hearing is July 18. On June 6, the court had summoned Raut before it on the next date - July 4, having found prima facie material in the complaint.
In the complaint filed through Adv. Vivekanand Gupta, Medha Somaiya had sought that Raut be tried for defaming her. She said Raut had made statements against her on April 15 this year in the media regarding her NGO Yuvak Pratishthan being involved in corrupt activities. These statements immediately went viral on social media too, she complained. She said she is a professor of organic chemistry at Ramnarain Ruia College, has been involved with NGOs and charitable activities and has a great reputation, especially among students.
Her complaint stated that due to the Shiv Sena MP’s statements and imputations, she had to undergo severe agony in trying to explain the true facts to her well-wishers, family members, friends as well as people from her social, professional field circle and her students. Her plea said that he had made derogatory statements against her with malafide intentions and had tried to portray her to the public at large as a fraudster involved in illegal activities.
In its order while summoning Sanjay Raut, magistrate Mokashi had stated that he prima facie made derogatory statements against the complainant. The magistrate had held that from documents and video clips produced on record, it can be seen that he made derogatory statements against Medha Somaiya so that they can be seen by the public at large and read by them in newspapers.
