LUCKNOW: Former UP Congress president Ajay Kumar alias Lallu was on Saturday sentenced to a year in jail for defamatory comments against Shrikant Sharma, a BJP MLA who was power minister in the first Yogi Adityanath government, over an alleged Rs 2,600-crore EPF scam in the UP Power Corporation Ltd (UPPCL). The court also fined Lallu Rs 10,000 and said if he did not deposit the sum, he would have to spend 15 more days in jail.
Lallu had sought release on probation instead of jail, but additional chief judicial magistrate AK Srivastava turned down his request.
“Since Lallu is (former) state president of a national party, it is more expected of him that he must observe patience in his conduct and language in public life. If Lallu is given the benefit of probation, it would send a wrong message to common public,” the court observed.
Sharma had filed the criminal complaint in 2019 under Section 500 of IPC (defamation) claiming Lallu had made indecent allegations in public. Sharma had sent a legal notice seeking an apology, but Lallu did not do so.
The court found that Lallu’s allegations were totally wrong, malicious and misleading, and were made without verifying facts as part of a conspiracy to harm Sharma’s image. In one of these allegations, dating back to 2019, Lallu claimed Sharma had visited Dubai in 2017, demanded a probe into who the minister had met there and said “it smacked of national security issues”.
Lallu had sought release on probation instead of jail, but additional chief judicial magistrate AK Srivastava turned down his request.
“Since Lallu is (former) state president of a national party, it is more expected of him that he must observe patience in his conduct and language in public life. If Lallu is given the benefit of probation, it would send a wrong message to common public,” the court observed.
Sharma had filed the criminal complaint in 2019 under Section 500 of IPC (defamation) claiming Lallu had made indecent allegations in public. Sharma had sent a legal notice seeking an apology, but Lallu did not do so.
The court found that Lallu’s allegations were totally wrong, malicious and misleading, and were made without verifying facts as part of a conspiracy to harm Sharma’s image. In one of these allegations, dating back to 2019, Lallu claimed Sharma had visited Dubai in 2017, demanded a probe into who the minister had met there and said “it smacked of national security issues”.
