Pune Court Grants Pre-Arrest Bail To Hindutva Leader Milind Ekbote & 3 Others In Hate Speech Case

While the detailed order is yet to be released, the court has allowed anticipatory bail applications of four other accused, including right-wing activist Milind Ekbote, for Rs. 25,000 each and one or two sureties of the same amount. Other three who have been granted anticipatory bail are Nandkumar Ekbote, Deepak Nagpure and Mohanrao Shete.

Additional Sessions Judge PR Asturkar has directed all the accused to cooperate with investigation, not to tamper with evidence and to attend the police station every Sunday between 11am and 2pm and as and when called by the police till the time charge sheet is filed or 60 days from the date of the order.

The operative order of the court also notes that the accused shall not commit any other offence while on bail, and breach of any condition would result in the protection being vacated.

A Judicial Magistrate's court had granted bail to the only arrested accused in the case so far – Kalicharan Maharaj alias Abhijit Srag. The section under which the accused have been charged are Sections 295A (Deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage reli­gious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or reli­gious beliefs), 298 (words and acts to outrage religious feelings), 505(2) (statements promoting enmity between classes) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code.

The alleged hate speech was delivered during 'Shiv Pratap Din' program on December 19, 2021, organized to celebrate the killing of Adilshahi commander Afzal Khan by Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in 1659.

Judicial Magistrate (First Class) MA Shaikh, in an order last Friday, had observed that there was no recovery required to be made from Kalicharan and the sections were punishable for upto three years, therefore no physical custody was required.

"It will take time to complete the investigation. Till then, accused cannot be kept behind the bar, by putting some conditions, accused can be released on bail," the order read.

Kalicharan will, however, remain in custody for now as he has been arrested in a case in Chhattisgarh for criticising Mahatma Gandhi where his bail application is now pending before the High Court and Thane police too has registered a case against him. He has now been arrested by Wardha police of Maharashtra in a case of hate speech.

Maharaj was remanded in one day's police custody after being brought to Pune and last Thursday, he was remanded in judicial custody after the police did not seek further custody. He then sought to be released on bail, which was granted on Friday.

Kalicharan's lawyers had sought bail mainly on the ground that the maximum punishment for all the offences he was charged with was only 3 years and therefore the police should have followed the mandate of section 41A of the Criminal Procedure Code as laid down by the Supreme Court in Arnesh Kumar's judgment. He contended that the arrest was illegal as no notice was issued to his client under Section 41A of CrPC which made the arrest illegal and that the FIR was registered after a delay of over 7 days.

The JMFC's order recorded that the bail application was "vehemently opposed by the public prosecutor" as well as the Investigation Officer. The prosecution contended that the offences against Kalicharan were non-bailable and serious in nature, that there were chances of him absconding, he could misuse his liberty by trying to create chaos leading to issues of law and order and that he may tamper with the witnesses and commit further crime.

The court, however, granted him bail for Rs. 25,000 with one or two sureties of the same amount and directed him to co-operate with the investigation and attend the concerned police station once a month till filing of the charge sheet.