Delhi HC issues notice on plea moved by Raut seeking quashing of FIR against him

Shiv Sena leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut has moved a petition before the Delhi High Court seeking quashing of an FIR registered against him on December 12 2021 for allegedly using abuses and expletives while giving an interview to a Marathi News channelThe matter was listed for hearing on 15 February 2022 before the bench of Justice Mukta Gupta The high court issued notice and listed the matter for 6 April 2022 for hearingThe petitioner was represented by Shreeyash U Lalit and the State was represented by Nandita Rao The FIR was registered on a complaint filed by Deepti Bharadwaj the National General Secretary of BJP Mahila MorchaThe petition stated that on September 9 2021 Raut participated in a TV9 Marathi live interview involving discussions on the performance of the current governmentIn this interview the petitioner was interviewed with regard to a photograph being circulated on Twitter where he had offered a chair to the President of NCP Sharad PawarDuring the interview the reporters mentioned that some of the workers from 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 PawarResponding to these allegations Raut stated in the interview that it is Maharashtras 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 responded with certain expletives and abusesIn this context a complaint was filed by Bharadwaj alleging that Sanjay Raut had outraged the modesty of the female political workersConsequently an FIR was registered under Sections 500 and 509 of the IPC before PS Mandawli Fazal Pur DelhiIn response Sanjay Raut filed a petition under Section 482 CrPC seeking quashing of the FIR before the Delhi High CourtIn this petition Sanjay 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 workersIt was further argued that the words used were not defamatory or targeted towards insulting any woman Moreover it was also stated that the uncontroverted facts in the FIR stood covered under Section 95 of the IPC especially since the matter was so trivial that no ordinary person would complain of such harmHe further argued that the allegations made against him were frivolous and made with an ulterior motiveThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever