Jodhpur, November 21 (IANS). Actress Shilpa Shetty has got relief from the Rajasthan High Court in the SC/ST case registered against her for some things she said in an interview in 2016.
The High Court has canceled the FIR registered against him under the SC/ST Act. On behalf of Shilpa Shetty, her advocate Prashant Patil presented his side in the court. The court said that without sanction and preliminary investigation, FIR cannot be registered under the SC/ST Act. This case was registered in Churu Kotwali police station.
At the same time, no decision has been taken yet on Salman Khan’s petition, because his Special Leave Petition (SPL) is pending in the Supreme Court, due to which the court has also kept this matter pending.
Actress Shilpa Shetty’s lawyer Gopal Sandhu told IANS, “This is an interview from 2013, in which there is a separate interview of actor Salman Khan and a separate interview of Shilpa Shetty. Based on those interviews, an FIR was lodged at Churu police station in 2018, in which sections of the SC/ST Act were invoked. In this FIR, we had filed a petition on behalf of Shilpa Shetty, in which Shilpa Shetty has now got relief and the High Court has canceled that case. The court observed that there should be a preliminary investigation before registering cases under such SC/ST Act. No case can be registered without this investigation, whereas no such investigation was conducted in this case.”
Gopal Sandhu said, “Besides, there was also a clearance issue. This special section which was imposed on them was implemented only in 2016. That means when this interview took place in 2013, this section did not exist. On these grounds and a particular caste-indicative term that was used, the court analyzed and explained how it came to be and does not fall under the SC/ST Act. Thus Shilpa Shetty got relief and the FIR was quashed.”
–IANS
PSM/AKJ
