SC stays Thackeray sentence

The Supreme Court on Wednesday stayed two sentences of imprisonment awarded to Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray by the Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court in a contempt case.

The interim stay was granted by a division bench comprising Justice K Ramaswamy and Justice Shaghir Ahmed, while admitting three appeals against the interim judgment dated February 7 and issuing notices on them.

The notices issued to Harish Pimpilkhute and others, who were the complainants before the high court in the contempt case, were accepted by their counsel.

The appeals by Sanjay Raut and Subhash Desai, columnist, printer and publisher of the Shiv Sena mouthpiece Samana, against their conviction and sentence on the charge of the contempt of court were also admitted.

The court fixed March 27 for the hearing of the appeal and asked the parties to file their replies and complete the pleading before that date.

The high court, by the impugned judgment, had convicted Thackeray for contempt of court under Article 215 of the Constitution initiating suo motu proceedings though the complainants had filed their compliances under Section 15 of the Contempt of Court Act and sentenced him to one week simple imprisonment on two counts each -- one for making a political speech on October 21 last year allegedly casting aspersion on a judge, and the other for publishing the same in Samana of which he is the editor.

The high court also imposed fines of Rs 2000 each on both counts. Thackeray had already paid the fines of total Rs 4,000. The high court had suspended the sentences till Thursday to enable him to file his statutory appeal.

Sanjay Raut and Subhash Desai were also awarded one week simple imprisonment and fine of Rs 2,000 each for commenting on the alleged speech and publishing the same respectively.

UNI