By IANS
Lucknow : A special court here has awarded one year rigorous imprisonment plus a Rs.5,000 fine to a journalist for publishing a “concocted, false and defamatory” interview of a district magistrate of Muzaffarnagar more than a decade ago.
Together with Raman Kirpal, then a reporter of the Pioneer daily, the then editor A.K. Bhattacharya and publisher Sanjiv Kanwar have also been awarded six months rigorous imprisonment and fine of Rs.2,000.
Ghanshyam Pankaj, the then editor of Lucknow-based Hindi daily Swatantra Bharat and Dipak Mukherjee, the then publisher, also got six months rigorous imprisonment along with a Rs.2,000 fine for publishing the contents of the same “concocted” interview in their columns on the following day.
The verdict came Monday, exactly 10 years after a criminal case was filed by then Muzaffarnagar district magistrate Anant Kumar Singh. It was made public Wednesday.
Singh is alleged to have made a very loose statement in an interview to Kirpal, who was covering the then people’s movement for carving out a new Himalayan state of Uttarakhand.
While referring to the alleged mass rape of women activists involved in a demonstration at Rampour Tiraha in Muzaffarnagar district where the administration had even ordered a firing on the demonstrators, Singh is alleged to have told Kirpal: “You see it is human tendency when a woman is seen at a lonely place in a jungle, any man will be inclined to rape her.”
Singh, who from day one vehemently denied making any such statement, issued a contradiction to the editors of these newspapers. After the contradiction was not carried by the papers, he moved the Press Council of India, which admonished the concerned scribes and publishers.
Singh then filed criminal cases against the journalists before the criminal court in 1997. The 10-year-long trial concluded Monday, Special Chief Judicial Magistrate Suresh Chandra-II gave the verdict.
Chandra held that the complainant has proved beyond reasonable doubt that the interview published by the accused was concocted and defamatory. “The accused people have failed to prove that the reporter had actually taken the interview,” the judgement pointed out.
Kirpal is now in Delhi and Pankaj is a retired journalist.