SRINAGAR, Nov 17:
Sub Judge Passenger Tax Court, Ashwani Kumar today dismissed the application filed by People’s Democratic Party President Mehbooba Mufti in which she had prayed for the dismissal of the 2004 defamation case filed against her by National Conference leader Ali Mohammad Sagar.
In her application, Mehbooba’s counsel Mohammad Altaf Naik argued that the complaint under Section 500 RPC (Defamation) was not maintainable, as no prior sanction for the prosecution under Section 197 had been obtained before lodging the complaint, adding “court should have taken the cognizance of the matter after taking sanction from the Speaker of Lok Sabha as Mehbooba was Member of Parliament at that time”.
Moreover, he prayed before the Court that whatever Mehbooba Mufti had stated was based on the contents of the FIR.
However, Sagar’s counsel argued that defamatory utterances had been made by Mehbooba Mufti in April 2004,while as she was elected as MP in May 2004 which does not make it mandatory to get prior permission from Lok Sabha Speaker.
“The court dismissed the application and now the case is scheduled for further hearing and recording of statements on November 24”, said Sagar’s Counsel Advocate Hamid Bakhshi.
It may be recalled that Sagar filed a defamation suit against Mehbooba after she accused him of rigging elections and capturing polling booths to ensure victory of present Chief Minister Omar Abdullah. Sagar was then chief polling agent of Omar.
On July 28, last year Mehbooba filed an application before the court praying that she should be discharged from what she called a baseless defamation case against her. In her application the PDP president had said that the complaint of bogus voting against Sagar was not reported by her but by the then polling officer who was on his duty at polling station Khanyar.
Before the Judge for Passenger Tax could proceed ahead, Mehbooba challenged Sagar’s petition in the High Court in 2005 under Section 561. After hearing the case for 4-years, Mehbooba’s petition was dismissed by the High Court, which directed Magistrate Passenger taxes to go ahead with the proceedings. (KNS)
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