Bombay HC drops FIR against activist who ‘spread number’ of IAS officer engaged in Aarey Metro car shed work

The bench also issued a warning to the investigating officer of BKC police station from registering such cases in future.

A division bench of Justices Sunil B Shukre and M M Sathaye was on April 5 hearing a plea by Michael, a Bengaluru resident and the executive director of Jhatkaa, a civil society trust. He was booked by the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) police station for orchestrating a “denial of service attack” on Bhide’s cell phone and landline.

Following a police complaint lodged by Bhide on January 18, 2018, he was arrested on May 9 and released the same day on a personal bond of Rs 5,000. According to the FIR registered by complainant Sanjay Dani, from January 12, Bhide, then managing director of Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Limited (MMRC), which was engaged in construction of a car shed on land belonging to Aarey dairy, had started getting missed calls on her cell phone from people who wanted to register their protest.

As per the FIR, she felt offended and was obstructed in discharge of her official functions and she blocked the numbers from which she received those messages.

The bench noted that Bhide herself did not make allegations and the Investigating Officer made no efforts to find out the source of information of Dani regarding the alleged crime.

Senior advocate Gayatri Singh and advocate Vijay Hiremath representing the petitioner said that Michael and the others had merely stated in those messages that the Aarey forest is a green lung for Mumbai just as Cubbon Park is for Bangalore and therefore pleaded with Bhide to look for alternatives so that nearly 3,500 trees which were to be felled can be saved.

The bench observed, “These messages do not contain any offensive material or any obscenities. Rather, they appear to have been sent in assertion of a democratic right of citizens of this country to put forth his view point, to object, to protest, to persuade, to urge, and so on. It then follows that if anybody is booked for criminal offences such as those as have been registered against the present petitioner, it may amount to an invasion upon the rights of the citizens of this country.”

The bench further said, “Such an effort by any complainant, howsoever high he or she may be in position, cannot be countenanced and must be stopped. Upon such a complaint, as the one involved here, police must never book any ordinary citizen of the country under criminal law and if it does, it would be like suppressing his voice against what he considers to be a wrongful thing. We, therefore, find that no offence under Section 186 (Obstructing public servant in discharge of public functions) of IPC is made out against the petitioner.”

“…These messages show at their face-value that the sender of the messages was the person who had intention to make efforts for preservation of the trees in the larger interest of society… These allegations, when accepted as they are, also do not indicate commission of any offence as is contemplated under Sections 43(f) and 66 of the Information Technology Act, 2000,” the bench said while allowing plea.