Hazare, who was convicted under Section 500 (defamation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), was taken into custody after turning down the option of being released on a bond of good behaviour for two years given his age and contribution to public service. He told Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate K H Holambe-Patil that he would gladly go to jail as he had no savings to execute the Rs 5,000 bond.

Jayshree Khadilkar-Pande, editor of the Marathi daily Navakal, who was charged under Sections 501 and 502 (printing and publishing defamatory matter), was acquitted after getting the benefit of doubt. She was let off with a warning.

Gholap had filed the case on November 4, 1997, after Hazare gave an interview to Navakal, where he charged the minister with corruption in the working of the Vasantrao Naik Development Corporation. He had also claimed that Gholap was found guilty by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), which had conducted an inquiry into the alleged corruption in the Vasantrao Naik Development Co rporation.

The magistrate said that neither had the evidence recorded earlier nor the ACB report implicated the minister in corrupt practices. He added that Gholap could not be held responsible merely because the organisation in which the alleged corruption was committed fell under the jurisdiction of his ministy.

The minister's case was bolstered by the testimony of Deputy Commissioner of Police (ACB) Bhaskar Parab, who was summoned as a witness. Parab told the court that his department had in fact submitted a letter to the minister stating that there was no in inquiry against him after personally checking with all the state departments of the ACB.

Two other witnesses - Rajkumar Suryavanshi and Uttam Handore, both from Nashik (Gholap's constituency) - had stated in court that turmoil broke out in the town following Hazare's interview in Navakal. People were shocked to read the allegations against the minister and even went to the Shiv Sena's office to inquire about Gholap. They also gheraoed the minister when he visited Nashik shortly thereafter, they had said. Based on their testimony, the court said Gholap had indeed been defamed.

Gholap, the fourth witness to be examined, examined had claimed that the interview was defamatory per se.

The court also turned down Hazare's counsel P Janardhan's argument that Suryavanshi and Handore had been hired by Gholap as their names were not mentioned in the complaint.

On the alleged corruption, Hazare said the ACB inquiry had established that the corporation had purchased powerlooms for Rs 8 crore in order to favour a particular company and that these machines were still idle. The corporation was directly under Gholap's charge as its managing committee was dissolved after the Shiv Sena-BJP government came to power in the state.

The minister's counsel, Nilesh Pawaskar and Ashwin Modi, pointed out that the ACB inquiry had not named Gholap and added that the matter had been raised in the Bombay High Court on three occassions. Despite the petitions being dismissed on all three occasions, Hazare had repeated the allegations in the newspaper interview, they said.

Regarding Khadilkar-Pande, the magistrate said he was acquitting her under exception 9 to Section 499 of the IPC. He accepted her argument that the interview was published in good faith because Chief Minister Manohar Joshi had told her father and former editor of the paper, Nilakanth Khadilkar, that he had forwarded Hazare's complaint against Gholap to the ACB.