Marathi television actress Ketaki Chitale, arrested more than a month back for sharing an allegedly defamatory post on social media about NCP chief Sharad Pawar, was on June 22 finally granted bail by the Thane sessions court. She will be home today (June 23) after a month and nine days in custody.
Her lawyers argued in court that although the police claimed that they had 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 under which the accused is given a chance to explain his stand, the notice was in effect “a complete farce” as it was given to her at the time of arrest. The lawyers added that in law, it cannot be said that the police had complied with section 41A. The court agreed and took a serious view of the matter.
Judge H.M. Patwardhan pointed to the 22 FIRs registered against the actress across Maharashtra, to which the public prosecutor said, he was only concerned with the FIR filed against Chitale at the Kalwa police station. The judge granted her bail on a solvent surety of Rs. 20,000.
Ketaki had already been granted bail on June 16 in an Atrocities Act case registered against her at the Rabale police station in March 2020 for allegedly posting defamatory comments against minority communities on Facebook. The Rabale police had filed a chargesheet against her on May 30.
The actress had last week filed a fresh petition before the 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.