Union Minister Narayan Rane’s remark against Uddhav Thackeray does not constitute criminal intimidation: Raigad court.

The Raigad court in its order dated 1/4/2023 in the matter of state through Mahad city police station v/s Narayan Tatya @ Tatu Rane held that the remark made by the accused against the former chief minister does not constitute criminal intimidation and therefore discharged the accused of the charge.

The accused in the year 2021 made a remark against the then-chief minister in a press conference. The comment of the respondent toward the former minister was “if it was me, I would have slapped him.” Thus, the accused was charged with sec 506, 153-A, 505[2], and 506 along with other charges.

The accused did not deny the utterance of the comment made by him however submitted that the statement was just a political statement with no intention to cause disturbance in the society, between any group or community or to disturb public tranquillity. The accused further contended that he should be discharged as there is no ground for proceeding against him as the offenses, he is charged with do not attract in the present circumstances. 

The additional public prosecutor on the other hand contended that the video clipping of the remark made by the accused was circulated on social media and was published in various newspapers which disturbed the public tranquillity and broke out violence.

It was argued that the word “community” means a group of persons who believe in particular things or follow a particular person and thus the then chief minister belonged to a particular political party and can be understood as a community thus after the remark made by the accused violence to broke out between the two communities that is the shiv sena and Bhartiya Janta party and thus this would attract sec 153-A & 502[2[ of the IPC.

The court observed that the statement made by the accused is not against any caste, religion, race, or regional group. The court referred to the observations made in Bilal kaloo’s judgment with respect to sec 153-A & 502[2] wherein it was observed that the common feature between both the sections to promote the feeling of ill will, enmity or hatred is that at least two such groups or communities should be involved. Merely inciting the feelings of one group or community without any reference to the other cannot attract these sections.

The court observed that there is no mention of any community in the statement of the accused and thus it does not satisfy the test laid down in the above judgment and therefore does not attract sec 153-A & 502[2] of the IPC.

The court with respect to section 504 observed that to attract the said section the accused should insult the other person intentionally and provoke the person insulted to break out public peace or under the influence of provocation to commit any other crime.

The court here observed that the informant has not been insulted by the accused and thus he is not provoked to break out the public peace or commit an offense and therefore does not attract the said section.

The court with respect to sec 506 observed that the statement given by the accused is not a concrete or immediate threat. For it to fall under the said section the threat should be immediate such as I will slap him, or I am going to slap him can be an immediate threat. Threats under the guise of “if” & “then” do not fall under the said section and therefore do not attract sec 506 of the IPC.  

Thus, the court observed that though the statements made by the accused were politically insensitive and should not have been made by such a person however the same cannot be considered criminal intimidation and thus discharge him of the offense.

Written by Amruta Pawar, semester 6th, college: The University of Mumbai thane sub-campus.

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