Court grants pre-arrest bail to Shinde Sena leader who ‘offended’ journalist

The Bombay High Court on Monday granted pre-arrest bail to Waman Mhatre, Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena leader from Badlapur, who had allegedly made offensive remarks against a woman journalist in August.
While accepting the anticipatory bail plea filed by Mhatre, Justice Sandeep Marne said “I have allowed the petition.’
The bench observed that the exact gestures made by Mhatre were not reflected in the FIR statement, which merely alleged making of “bizarre gestures”. “Whether the gestures allegedly made by Mhatre would fit into the expression gestures of a sexual nature becomes questionable at this stage”, said Justice Marne.
Mhatre, former Mayor of the Kulgaon Badlapur Municipality in Thane district, was accused of confronting the journalist while she was covering the protest against the sexual abuse of two kindergarten girls in August, and told her that she was “reporting as if she herself had been raped”.
Following the incident, the journalist had registered an FIR with Badlapur police against Mhatre for his alleged offensive comments under the Schedule Caste and Schedule Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
However, Justice Marne noted that charges under this Act could not be made out unless there was knowledge on the part of the accused that the person to whom the gestures were made was a member of the Scheduled Caste.
The court added that the journalist was a mere acquaintance and “It appears that there was no reason for him to have prior knowledge of the fact that she belonged to the Scheduled Caste community”.
The High Court bench noted that the statement of the journalist indicated that the concerned utterances and gestures were made by Mhatre because he was perturbed by reporting of the incident by her and not because she belonged to Scheduled Caste community.
The FIR statement does not indicate that there was any intention on the part of Mhatre to humiliate the caste of the journalist, said the bench.
Mhatre initially filed an anticipatory bail plea in the Kalyan Sessions Court, which was subsequently rejected. Following this, he sought relief from the High Court with the assistance of advocate Viresh Purwant, contending that the incident did not occur as alleged by the journalist.
“In fact, Mhatre was advising/requesting her not to publish any fake or false news which was likely to instigate the public who were protesting against the sensitive matter which had occurred in Badlapur recently”, Advocate Viresh Purawat argued.
Mhatre claimed that the allegations were levelled only in order to malign his reputation in Badlapur with an intention to discredit him politically at the behest of his political rivals.
The journalist had opposed Mhatre’s plea through advocate Sameer Vaidya and stated that proper sections had not been applied by the police, alleging that they were hand-in-glove with Mhatre, due to which her statement had been mellowed down from what she had stated and what had actually transpired.