Lucknow, Mar 18 (PTI) A court here on Saturday sentenced former Uttar Pradesh Congress president Ajay Kumar Lallu to one-year imprisonment for making defamatory statement against ex-minister Shrikant Sharma.

The court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate A K Srivastava also imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 on Lallu and said he would have to spend another 15 days in jail if he fails to deposit the fine.

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In its order, the court refused to release Lallu on probation.

"Since Lallu is ( former) state president of a national party and is in public life and as such it is more expected of him that he must observe patience on his conduct and language in public life. If Lallu is given benefit of probation, it would send wrong message in common public", the court observed.

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Sharma had filed a criminal complaint in the court in 2019 asking the court to summon and punish Lallu as he had made indecent allegation against him in public and it got media coverage.

Lallu was summoned and put on trial. Before filing the case in court, Sharma, a former Uttar Pradesh cabinet minister, had sent legal notice to Lallu seeking an apology but he had not tendered apology.

In his defamatory statement, Lallu had on November 4, 2019 made allegation of scam and foreign visit on Sharma.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)