Senior journalist Lankesh convicted in defamation cases
BENGALURU: A Judicial Magistrate First Class Court convicted sen ior journalist Gauri Lankesh in criminal defamation cases and sentenced her to six months’ jai on Tuesday.
The cases were filed by Bharatiya Janata Party MP Pralhad Joshi and party leader Umesh Dushi against an article in Kannada tabloid Lankesh Patrike on January 23, 2008.
The court also imposed a pen alty of ₹5,000 in both the cases. It later granted her bail. She said she will appeal against the ver dict in the higher courts.
Lankesh is the daughter of famous Kannada playwright and editor of Lankesh Patrike a popular tabloid, P Lankesh who passed away in 2000.
Dushi’s counsel, Sanju Badaskar, said Lankesh was the second accused in the case. The first accused was the writer of the article. “However, we were not able to prove that he wrote the article as the byline only said reporter which is why he was acquitted.”
Badaskar said the sentence was mild, it should carry “a max imum sentence of three years.”
The article was in response to a racket the police had busted in 2008 in which people were selling fake gold and few BJP corpora tors were implicated. However, the police did not find any evidence