Mumbai: A day after he was booked for outraging the modesty of the Mumbai Mayor Kishori Pednekar, BJP leader Ashish Shelar has moved the Bombay High Court on Thursday, seeking to quash the FIR. The MLA has claimed that his mere use of a simple Marathi word was blown out of proportion by the ruling parties in Maharashtra.
Shelar has moved through advocate Faiz Merchant, seeking to quash the FIR registered against him at Marine Drive police station. He has claimed that he only criticised the BMC authorities at his press conference and had no intention to insult or outrage the modesty of Pednekar or any other woman or girl.
Notably, Shelar was booked for speaking in a press conference, wherein he allegedly criticised Pednekar for visiting the site of a cylinder blast after 72 hours. “Where were you (the mayor) sleeping for so many hours?” Shelar had asked.
Taking offence to the word ‘sleeping’ Pednekar had written a letter to the home minister, seeking action against Shelar.
Aggrieved with the FIR, Shelar has said that it is a result of “brainstorming and imagination of the leaders of the ruling party”, to falsely implicate him in the case.
The plea further states that “the FIR is false, vexatious, frivolous, concocted and a product of abuse of the process of law”.
The petition is likely to be heard in the coming days.