4 months ago
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The Bombay High Court has quashed a 12-year-old FIR against programming heads and media executives of a Marathi tv transmission implicit an alleged objectionable dialog successful a serial, holding that they had nary relation successful its creation.
The lawsuit stemmed from an occurrence of the serial 'Laxmi versus Saraswati', which allegedly contained a dialog insulting to the Scheduled Caste community.
The FIR was primitively registered successful 2013 astatine the Wada constabulary presumption successful Maharashtra’s Thane district, pursuing a ailment by 1 Rahul Gaikwad.
The complainant alleged that during an occurrence aired connected August 22, 2012, a quality utilized the words “mahara-poranchi” successful the discourse of warding disconnected the “evil eye”. It was argued that these words were utilized intentionally to humiliate members of the Mahar community, a Scheduled Caste.
The petitioners, including the programming caput of ‘Star Pravah’ and Star Entertainment Media Pvt. Ltd., argued that they were not the contented creators and had nary relation successful the dialog delivery, which they claimed was an “impromptu” utterance by the actor.
In the judgement delivered by a Division Bench of Justice Manish Pitale and Manjusha Deshpande connected Tuesday (December 23, 2025), the Court emphasised the strict requirements for prosecuting offences nether the Atrocities Act.
“Since transgression prosecution for offence involves a superior matter, which tin pb to imposition of good and besides incarceration, the introspection arsenic to whether the ingredients of the transgression offence are made retired oregon not, has to beryllium strict and specific,” the Bench said.
The Court further noted an oversight successful the archetypal ailment regarding the individuality of the accused, “A perusal of the above-quoted proviso [Section 3(1)(x)] shows that. specified alleged acts are to beryllium undertaken by a idiosyncratic who is not a subordinate of a scheduled caste oregon a scheduled tribe. The connection of the archetypal informant and the contents of the FIR astatine nary spot adjacent allege that the petitioners herein are not members of the Scheduled Caste oregon the Scheduled Tribe,” it said.
The Court besides held that the Star Entertainment company and the different petitioners had perfectly nary relation successful finalising the dialogues. The petitioners were not liable for the originative contented oregon the “spur of the moment” dialog by the actor, it said.
For a complaint nether the Atrocities Act to stick, the prosecution indispensable explicitly authorities that the accused is not a subordinate of a Scheduled Caste oregon Tribe, “a item missing successful this FIR,” said the HC. The transmission had displayed a disclaimer stating they did not endorse the views expressed successful the serial, which supported their defence, it said.
