Post against Sharad Pawar: Marathi actor Ketaki Chitale gets bail a month later

NAVI MUMBAI: More than a month after her May 14 arrest, Marathi tele-serial actor Ketaki Chitale is expected to return home on Thursday. On Wednesday, a Thane sessions court granted her bail in an FIR registered by Kalwa police station for sharing an allegedly objectionable and defamatory social media post about NCP chief Sharad Pawar, reports George Mendonca.
She is facing 22 FIRs and four non-cognisable offences in Maharashtra because of her one social media post. The FIRs invoked IPC Section 153 A for an offence of promoting enmity on the grounds of religion, race, place of birth and residence.
The prosecution did not oppose her bail plea. As she hasn't been arrested in any other FIR over the post, her advocates said she would be released Thursday on completion of bail formalities.
Actor to be back home today after over a month
Marathi tele-serial actor Ketaki Chitale, arrested for sharing an allegedly objectionable and defamatory social media post about NCP chief Sharad Pawar, would be home on Thursday after a month and nine days in custody, said her advocates Ghanshyam Upadhyay and Yogesh Deshpande.
Upadhyay had argued that the police claimed they issued her a notice under Section 41A of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), meant in cases where punishment attracts up to seven years' imprisonment, and instead of directly making an arrest, the police first seek the accused's presence to give an explanation. He said the notice was "a complete farce" as it was given to her just a few minutes before her arrest and, in fact, at the time of arrest and thus, in law, it cannot be said that the police have complied with Section 41A. The Thane court appeared to agree and took a serious view in this regard, said her lawyers later.
Judge H M Patwardhan pointed to the 22 FIRs registered against Chitale across Maharashtra to which the Public Prosecutor said he was only concerned with the FIR filed against Chitale at Kalwa police station.
The judge granted her bail on a solvent surety of Rs 20,000.
Chitale has already been granted bail on June 16 in an Atrocities Act case registered against her at Rabale police station in March 2020 for allegedly posting defamatory comments against minority communities on Facebook. Rabale police had filed a chargesheet against her on May 30.
Chitale had last week filed a fresh petition before Bombay high court seeking orders to declare her May 14 arrest by the Kalwa police as being "illegal" and in "breach of the law" laid down by the Supreme Court. It said the 34-year-old "artist and social activist", currently in Thane jail, "is not an expert in law" and had simply signed when asked to sign certain papers at Kalamboli police station by police, claiming they were part of formalities for arrest.