The Bombay High Court granted relief to Abdul Ghadiyali accused of allegedly uploading a post on social media that was ‘disrespectful’ to Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar. A case was registered against Ghadiyali with the Mumbra police under sections of the IPC, Information Technology Act and Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
Justice S K Shinde granted the anticipatory bail to Ghadiyali and said he will be released after paying a bond of Rs 20,000.
The court also issued a notice to the complainant.The HC directed the investigating officer to get Ghadiyali’s Facebook account blocked to prevent any further spread of the post.
The complainant, Pravin Pawar, claimed that Ghadiyali disrespected Dr Ambedkar .However, Ghadiyali’s advocate Tahera Qureshi argued that he was falsely implicated since he was an RTI activist. She claimed that an unknown person created a Facebook account in Ghadiyali’s name and posted the message through this fake account.
He has disowned the account as well as the post, argued Qureshi.
Additional public prosecutor A D Khamkhedkar informed the court that the Mumbra police requested the Thane police cyber cell to verify the IP address and other details and submit a report, which is expected to come within a month.
While granting anticipatory bail to Ghadiyali, Justice Shinde said, “Unless it is ascertained if it was a fake account of the applicant or not, it would not be appropriate to deny him the protection of the law.”
