[Facebook post targeting Sharad Pawar] Ketaki Chitale moves Bombay High Court challenging arrest

Marathi actor Ketaki Chitale, booked for allegedly reproducing a derogatory poem against Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Chief Sharad Pawar on Facebook, has approached the Bombay High Court challenging her arrest by Thane Court and subsequent detention in judicial custody..Chitale's plea filed through advocate Ghanshyam Upadhyay, has stated the following:- Not only is the arrest illegal but even the police remand given by the Magistrate court was in breach of the guidelines passed by the Supreme Court in the case of Arnesh Kumar;- The police should have given her a notice under Section 41A of Code of Criminal Procedure and given an opportunity to appear before being arrested;The plea contended that the day the FIR was registered by complainant, she was called by the Kalamboli police station in Thane district asking her to appear which she complied with it.The officials of the Kalwa Police Station who were present there took her into custody.Chitale stated that the Kalwa police never gave her a notice to attend police station, they came to the Kalamboli police station with a predetermined intention to arrest her even before they had any oral interaction with her.Chitale also alleged that a mob of goons led by a leader from the NCP attacked, assaulted and outraged her modesty outside the police station. "The gathering of a huge mob outside police station and the inaction of police to register offence against assaulters establishes that Kalwa Police and Kalamboli Police were in collusion with the assaulters and the tip of presence of petitioner was also provided by some insider in the police department," her plea stated..The 29-year-old actor had posted on her Facebook profile a Marathi poem attributed to another person. The poem mentioned the surname (Pawar), age (80) and physical ailments which the NCP leader is also suffering from.Chitale was arrested on grounds that she made disparaging remarks about Pawar’s illness, appearance and voice and also called him corrupt.She was detained by the police on May 14 before she was declared arrested.She was booked by the Thane crime branch police under sections 500 (defamation), 501 (printing or engraving defamatory matter) and 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc, and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony) of the Indian Penal Code.She was then produced before a holiday Magistrate court who remanded the actor to police custody till May 18 before being remanded to judicial custody.Chitale has already approached the High Court seeking quashing of the 22 FIRs and 3 non-cognizable offences complaints registered against her for the same post allegedly aimed against Pawar. That petition is pending before the Court.