A magistrate"™s court Tuesday convicted senior journalist and former Hindustan Times editor Vir Sanghvi and three others in a 2004 defamation case and sentenced them to one-month imprisonment, besides imposing a fine of Rs 3,000.

The complainant, Ajay Ubale, the then chief of the Narcotics Control Bureau in Mumbai, had filed the complaint against Sanghvi and five others after an"incorrect" news report appeared in the newspaper"™s Delhi edition in December 2001 accusing him of extortion.

Advocate Mihir Gheewala, who represented the Hindustan Times team, confirmed the court"™s order, but said he was yet to access the detailed order copy.

Ubale is presently posted as an additional commissioner of Central Excise in Kolkata.