HC grants 4 weeks time to Delhi Police to record statement of BJP leader who lodged FIR against Sanjay Raut

Raut has moved a plea for quashing the FIR registered for allegedly using abuses/expletives while giving an interview to a Marathi news channel.

Justice Talwant Singh after hearing the submissions of counsel for the petitioner and for the State, granted four weeks time to Investigation Officer (IO) to examine and record the statement of Deepti Rawat. The court has listed the matter on May 27 for further hearing on the plea.

The High Court said that the status report has been filed by the Delhi Police stating that complaint did not come forward to record her statement. Investigation Officer sought four weeks time to record her statement.

The court observed that Delhi Police registered an FIR against the sitting MP, now they are not recording the complainant's statement.

Additional standing counsel Nandita Rao for Delhi Police submitted that the complainant is not coming forward to give her statement. Despite notice, she has not joined the investigation. Whenever Investigation Officer tried to contact her she said she was busy with the election campaign.

Advocate Shreeyash U Lalit, the counsel for the petitioner also submitted that despite the supply of the petition, the complainant had not filed her reply.

Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut moved a petition before the Delhi High Court seeking quashing of an FIR registered against him on December 12, 2021 for allegedly using abuses/ expletives while giving an interview to a Marathi News channel.

The FIR was registered on a complaint filed by BJP Mahila Morcha national general secretary Deepti Bharadwaj.

The petition stated that on September 9, 2021, Raut participated in a live TV interview involving discussions on the performance of the current government.

In this interview, the petitioner was interviewed with regard to a photograph being circulated on Twitter where he had offered a chair to the NCP chief Sharad Pawar.

During the interview, the interviewer mentioned that some of the workers from the BJP had alleged that Sanjay Raut, by offering a chair to Sharad Pawar, had shown that his allegiance was slowly shifting from Late Balasaheb Thackeray to Sharad Pawar.

Responding to these allegations, Raut stated in the interview that it is Maharashtra's culture to respect elders and that he would have offered a chair even if Late Vajpayee or even LK Advani had been there. When the interviewer asked a few more questions on this subject, Raut allegedly responded with certain expletives and abuses.

In this context, a complaint was filed by Bharadwaj alleging that Sanjay Raut had outraged the modesty of the female political workers.

Consequently, an FIR was registered under Sections 500 and 509 of the IPC before PS Mandawli Fazal Pur, Delhi.

In response, Sanjay Raut filed a petition under Section 482, CrPC seeking a quashing of the FIR before the Delhi High Court.

In his petition, Raut pleaded that the uncontroverted facts in the FIR did not establish any offence under Sections 500 and 509 of the IPC.

It was further averred that upon evaluating these utterances objectively, no reasonable person would ever conclude that these utterances had a pernicious effect on the reputation of any person, let alone any generic class of political workers, or had the effect or tendency to outrage the modesty of any particular female political worker or class of workers. (ANI)