RJD’s National Vice President, Shivanand Tiwary, has been sentenced to one year in prison by a Patna court in a criminal defamation case filed by Bihar minister Sanjay Kumar Jha five years ago.
The court, presided over by Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Sarika Bahaliya, also imposed a fine of ₹10,000 on Tiwary, a former state minister. Jha, who held key portfolios like Water Resources and Information and Public Relations in the Nitish Kumar government, filed the petition in 2018 when he was a national general secretary of the JD(U).
The defamation suit was related to comments made by Tiwary about Jha’s close relationship with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, the JD(U)’s supreme leader.
The court granted provisional bail to Tiwary and provided a 30-day window for him to appeal the order.
Tiwary, a veteran socialist leader with a longstanding association with both Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar, has been a member of parties floated by the two leaders at different times.