2004 Defamation Row: Court grants time to Govt to record Sagar's statement

KT NEWS SERVICE. Dated: 11/28/2012 12:10:43 AM

SRINAGAR, Nov 27: A city court has granted time till December 8, to state government for recording statement of Ali Mohammad Sagar, minister for rural development, law and parliamentary affairs in a defamation suit filed by him against Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti.
"The government sought time for recording of statement of Ali Mohammad Sagar, honorable minister for rural development which has been granted by the court. The next date of hearing is now on December 8," said advocate Shuja-ul-Haq Tantary, the counsel for Sagar, adding that the court has asked to produce other witnesses on the same day of hearing.
On November 17, the Magistrate Passenger Tax had rejected Mehbooba’s application challenging maintainability of the defamation suit against her. The application was rejected, after Mohammad Altaf Naik; the counsel for Mehbooba argued that whatever her client had said against Sagar was based on the contents of an FIR.
It may be recalled that Sagar filed a defamation suite against Mehbooba in 2004 in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) Srinagar under section 500. According to Sagar, Mehbooba had 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. Later Sagar in his defamation petition accused Mehbooba of maligning his image by leveling “baseless” allegations.
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.
Pertinently, Mehbooba had challenged Sagar’s defamation suit against her but the High Court had ordered that she can agitate all her points before the trial court. Earlier on June 28, last year Mehbooba had appeared before the judge for passenger tax.
The court had later said that it cannot reopen the case of maintainability of the petition at this stage of the proceedings. Mehbooba had submitted that she had not said anything against Sagar but quoted media reports against him only. Later she was admitted to bail to the tune of Rs 20,000 with two sureties of the same amount each. Mehbooba had also filed an application before the judge that she should be exempted from personal appearances in the matter in future, which was strongly objected by the complainant.
However, the court overruled the objections by holding that Mehbooba’s personal appearance can create security problems in the court. She was later exempted from appearing personally in the matter in further hearings in the matter.

 

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