Bombay High Court: Petitioners approached this Court for quashing the FIR registered at Dadar police station on 17-07-2024 under Sections of the (‘the SC & ST Act’) and under Sections , and of the . The Division Bench of Sarang V. Kotwal and Dr. Neela Gokhale, JJ., opined that there was no justification for slapping a member of parliament belonging to a scheduled caste, in public view and uttering derogatory words. The Court thus held that no case was made out for quashing the FIR.
Background
The FIR was lodged by the first informant ‘SD’, who was the President of Maharashtra Pradesh Bahujan Samaj Party. It was stated that the party’s executive committee had a meeting on 17-07-2024 and the name of the new President for Maharashtra and the new committee members had to be announced. The meeting was to be attended by ‘G’, M.P. Rajya Sabha and both petitioners were standing in queue to welcome ‘G’ and when Petitioner 1 came in front of ‘G’, she slapped him. Thereafter, both petitioners uttered derogatory words with reference to the two castes by saying that the party was made up of the people from those two scheduled castes. It was mentioned in the FIR that both petitioners did this act as they did not get the ticket to contest for Lok Sabha for that party and they were angry with ‘G’. Thus, based on these allegations, the FIR was lodged.
Counsel for petitioners submitted that when Petitioner 1 went on stage, ‘SD’ demanded Rs 5 lakhs, and one ‘SB’ abused her, and she was pushed from the stage. It was stated that the FIR was against petitioners, was a result of political vendetta and was lodged with malafide intentions. Whereas counsel for respondents submitted that the offences were made out as there were many eyewitnesses to the incident and the CCTV footage had captured the entire incident.
Analysis, Law, and Decision
The Court stated that the FIR referred to by petitioners which was lodged at Bhandara police station did not make any reference to slapping of ‘G’ which was the subject matter of the case lodged at the Dadar police station. The Court further stated that initially there was no allegation of demand of Rs 5 lakhs, but Petitioner 1 later mentioned it in her FIR. The allegations before were about abuse and assault.
The Court in relation to the contention that the FIR was lodged because of the political vendetta, opined that there was sufficient material collected during investigation to indicate that the incident did take place and there were no false allegations against petitioners due to political vendetta. The Court opined that actual slapping of ‘G’ was an offence under Section 3(2)(v-a) of the SC & ST Act.
The Court stated that though the investigating agency did not apply Section of in the FIR, the material collected during the investigation clearly made out existence of ingredients of Section 323.
The Court further stated that the incident had taken place in a public place and there were references to two scheduled castes and utterance was in derogation of those two castes. The said incident followed the incident of assaulting ‘G’. The Court opined that petitioners’ intention was clearly made out in the FIR and the incident was witnessed by many other people and the incident recorded in the CCTV camera supported the version in the FIR and of the eye witnesses.
The Court stated that there were overwhelming circumstances and material against petitioners. The Court opined that there was no justification for slapping a member of parliament belonging to a scheduled caste, in public view and uttering derogatory words. The Court thus held that the offences under the SC & ST Act were made out and no case for quashing the FIR was made out.
[Neema Sanjay Rangari v. State of Maharashtra, Criminal Writ Petition No. 3879 of 2024, decided on 02-12-2024]
Advocates who appeared in this case:
For the Petitioners: Ashwin Thool i/b. Archismati Chandramore for Petitioners.
For the Respondents: M.H. Mhatre, APP for State/Respondent; Rajendra Shirodkar, Senior Advocate a/w Nihar S. Ghag a/w Anil Y. Bansode a/w Pradeep Shirsat for Respondent 2.
Corresponding Section of the
Buy Penal Code, 1860
The post appeared first on .