Mumbai, June 23: The Mumbai High Court today deferred hearing of an appeal filed by Samajwadi Party's Maharashtra unit president and Rajya Sabha MP Abu Asim Azmi against a lower court order acquitting Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray and two others in a defamation case. The appeal came up for hearing before Justice V M Kanade, who, having appeared for Thackeray as his lawyer in a case earlier, decided not to hear this appeal.

It will now be referred to the chief justice who will assign the matter to another judge.

The high court had on March 5 granted special leave to Azmi to appeal against the acquittal of Thackeray, editor of Sena mouth-piece `Saamna', the newspaper's executive editor Sanjay Raut and its publisher Subhash Desai.
Earlier, on May 2, 2002, Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate N M Gosavi had dismissed Azmi's complaint and had acquitted Thackeray and others.

The SP leader had filed a defamation case against Thackeray and others after the publication carried an alleged defamatory story on July 1, 1998.

The news-story titled "Ha Azmi kon?" (who is this Azmi?) had alleged that the SP leader's hands were tainted with the blood of victims of Mumbai bomb blast of 1992-93.
The write-up further alleged that with the help of money-power, Azmi had been acquitted from the blast case.

Bureau Report