Court convicts lawyer of defaming IPS officer, sentences him to one month in jail | Mumbai News

On March 10, 2014, the Satara Police arrested constable Dharmraj Kalokhe in a drugs case and later the Marine Police also sought his arrest in another drug case and he was produced before a magistrate’s court in the city.

The complainant IPS officer then served as Additional Commissioner of Police (Addl.CP) in the Crime Branch from 2014 to 2016 and supervised the functioning of various units of the Crime Branch dealing with detection, drugs cell and enforcement wing, among others.

Chomal, in the said application filed on behalf of Kalokhe before the district court, had contended that the accused policeman was questioned by the Satara police regarding the alleged role of senior IPS officer KMM Prasanna, who was then Additional Inspector of Police, Mumbai and is currently posted as Inspector General (IG) (Establishments), Maharashtra Police.

IPS officer Prasanna alleged that based on an application filed through Chomal, press reports were published citing the alleged interrogation of Prasanna which damaged his reputation and was defamatory. Prasanna filed a complaint against Chomal for an offence under Section 500 (criminal defamation) of the IPC.

In the judgment delivered on Friday, the judge said that “the application (Chomala) containing the name of the present complainant (Prasanna) was totally unnecessary”, especially when “there is no mention in the records of the said police station about the role of the present complainant in this offence”.

“It appears from the record that after investigation into these allegations by the DGP, the officer of the concerned police station submitted a report stating that they did not interrogate the accused Kalokhe regarding the involvement of the present complainant in this crime at any point of time. “It is therefore clear that the allegations against the current applicant were unfounded and were mentioned in the application with an ulterior motive, most likely to influence the investigation,” the judge said.

Advocate Amol Phoujdar, who represented Prasanna, said any leniency towards the accused would demoralise other government officials and that the maximum sentence would be imposed on him to send a “strong message”. After Chomal appealed for leniency, the judge said a one-month simple prison sentence would “satisfy the ends of justice”.