Actress Ketaki Chitale gets bail in 2020 Atrocities case; to remain in jail for "derogatory post".

On Thursday, a court in Thane granted bail to Marathi actor Ketaki Chitale (29) in a case registered against her under Atrocities Act.

Though the actor has been granted bail on a surety amount of Rs 25,000, she will continue to remain in jail as she is accused in another case related to Sharad Pawar, in which the bail hearing is on June 21.

What was the Atrocities Case about?

On 3 March, 2020 a final-year law student had registered a complaint against Chitale with the Rabale police for allegedly posting derogatory comments on Buddhism. The police arrested the actor under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

As per the complaint, Chitale had given six points with comments on various religions, including Muslims, Parsis, Jains, Christians, and Buddhists.

Derogatory comments against Sharad Pawar

Thane police had on 14 May arrested Chitale for sharing a post on Facebook which was in verse form and purportedly written by someone else.

• It contained phrases like “hell is waiting” and “you hate Brahmins”, allegedly referring to Pawar, whose party shares power in Maharashtra with the Shiv Sena and Congress.

In her plea, the actress claimed that her arrest was illegal and that the high court should declare it so.

Chitale's plea, filed through advocate Yogesh Deshpande, claims that the police should have served her with a notice under section 41A of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) and allowed her to appear before a police officer.

• The film and TV actor claims she simply shared a poem written by someone else and that the post did not name the NCP chief.

The plea is likely to be mentioned before the high court on Friday for an urgent hearing.

The 29-year-old actor is currently facing over 20 FIRs based on the said Facebook post. She had earlier approached the high court seeking a stay on the investigation in these cases. The hearing on her previous plea is pending in the court.