The High Court had initially granted an interim injunction and restrained Zee, Kumar and others from making defamatory statements against Dhoni. Subsequently, Zee and the others filed their written statements in response to the defamation suit.
Following the written statements, Dhoni filed an application claiming that Kumar had gone on to make further defamatory statements in his written submissions. Thus, Dhoni had urged the High Court to initiate contempt of court proceedings against Kumar.
Dhoni later told the High Court that he was not interested in prosecuting Sampath Kumar for contempt if the latter tendered an apology for the remarks he had made.
However, Sampath refused to do so and argued that the contempt petition against him was not maintainable.
Dhoni then submitted copies of such statements made by Sampath against him and the Supreme Court. On examining the statements, the High Court remarked they were indeed contemptuous and sentenced the retired police officer to fifteen days in prison.
However, the Court suspended the sentence for thirty days to allow Kumar to file an appeal.
The appeal came up for hearing before the top court today, which in effect extended the effect of the suspension of Sampath Kumar’s sentence.
Source: Barandbench
