Court rejects discharge plea of Uddhav Thackeray, Sanjay Raut in defamation case

A Mumbai court rejects the discharge application filed by Uddhav Thackeray & Sanjay Raut in a defamation case filed by Rahul Shewale.

MUMBAI: A Metropolitan Magistrate court in Mumbai rejected the discharge application filed by Shiv Sena (UBT) president Uddhav Thackeray and party’s Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut on Thursday in the defamation case filed by CM Eknath Shinde-led Sena faction MP Rahul Shewale.

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Shewale accused them of publishing defamatory articles in the party mouthpiece ‘Saamana’. Thackeray is the editor of ‘Saamana’ and Raut is the executive editor.

Earlier this year, Shewale, through his lawyer Chitra Salunkhe, filed a complaint based on the article with the headline ‘Rahul Shewale has a hotel, real estate business in Karachi’ published on December 29, 2022, alleging that he has undisclosed assets acquired through wrongful methods in the neighbouring country.

The court adjourned the matter till November 9 for the recording of the evidence.

In reply to the discharge plea, on behalf of the complainant, Salunkhe stated that the attempt of the accused to distinguish between editor, chief editor, and executive editor and by admitting that the article was a product of the assistant editor, they were trying to deviate the court’s attention from the role of chief editor and executive editor before publication of articles in the Newspaper.

Refusing all the allegations made in the articles, Shewale stated in his plea that this was just an attempt to damage his reputation, considering that he was entrusted with important responsibilities for a long time, but his exit from the party turned him into a villain with false accusations against him to malign his image. Holding that the articles were devoid of any merits, Shewale said that this was a classic example of vendetta journalism.

However, Thackeray and Raut, in their discharge application, said that there was no evidence against them. They claimed to be innocent and said they were “falsely implicated in the alleged offence based on suspicion”.