A Bengaluru Special Court has granted anticipatory bail to Prathap Simha, former Member of Parliament from Mysuru, in the alleged 'blue shawl' caste remark case.

Judge Shivaprasad K.B., 82^nd Additional City Civil and Sessions Judge, allowed the petition and noted that the essential ingredients of the offences under Sections 3(1)(r) and 3(1)(u) of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 were not prima facie disclosed.

“….According to petitioner, the purpose of wearing the blue shawl by the workers of scheduled caste is for their livelihood. Such allegation does not signify the caste based attack towards such workers….As per the contents of complaint, the petitioner targeted the workers of scheduled caste and alleged against them…. Further, he allegedly attributed against the office bearers of the Dalit organization and Police official. So, apparently the alleged objectionable statements are concerning to certain specified persons of scheduled caste and the petitioner would not impute on the whole group of scheduled caste…, the court noted.

The two FIRs registered against the former MP was with respect to a remark that allegedly degraded the blue shawl which serves as a historical identity for Dalit organisations, and another remark that allegedly targeted Police Inspector Dhananjay with caste-related remarks in public view.

To recap, the first FIR was lodged by T. Narasipura Police under SC/ST Act in connection with a speech he gave during a Ganesha Visarjan procession over allegations of insulting the Dalit community with the 'blue shawl' remark

The complaint alleges that during his speech during the procession, the petitioner insulted the Dalit community by referring to individuals and Dalit activists wearing blue shawls as coming only for their livelihood, asking them to 'read Ambedkar first'. The FIR also accuses the politician of calling Dalit office-bearers 'agitators' for money.

The court, relying on apex court precedents, noted that 'all insults or intimidations to a person' will not be an offence under the Act, unless such insult or intimidation is on account of the victim belonging to a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe.

Another FIR also alleged that Simha referred to the caste of the police officer against whom he was allegedly speaking to. The procession was conducted with police permission and bandobast. Prior to the procession, a police officer had allegedly made derogatory remarks against the devotees. Simha alleges that the remark by the officer was about an instance if the procession were to pass through in front of a mosque. This allegedly agitated the devotees.

At this point, as per Simha's version, he spoke against the inspector from the procession vehicle. According to him, the remarks were pointed at the indecent conduct of the police and not against any religion or community.

Before the Special Court, Simha's counsel argued that the averments indicated general remarks against an unnamed group, and no identified person was humiliated. The words said to have been uttered by the politician was merely political criticisms, the counsel said.

The Investigating Officer had produced the DVD containing the petitioner's speech produced by the de facto complainant. The court perused the video graph in detail as widely by the media.

“…The videograph produced by the prosecution would indicate the allegations of petitioner against the persons claiming to be the members of Dalit Sangharsh Samithi and such videograph also fortify that the petitioner is not attributing against scheduled caste persons as a whole. The petitioner targeted against particular individuals i.e., workers and office bearers, persons of particular association of scheduled caste…"Further, such videographs does not indicate that the petitioner is trying to promote ill feeling or enmity against the members of scheduled caste, rather it appears that the petitioner objects to bring caste in every dispute...” the special court inferred further, while noting that the petitioner is eligible for anticipatory bail

As far as the provision of Section 356 BNS alleging assault on public servant, the prosecution had submitted the requisition to drop such provision, which the court took note of. The Court also noted that the offence punishable under Section 352 of BNS is bailable in nature.

The Court concluded:

“….Thus, in view of the aforesaid aspects of the matter, the prima facie case for the alleged non-bailable offences are not satisfied, and hence, the petitioner is entitled for anticipatory bail subject to conditions….”

Previously, the petitioner Simha had also approached the High Court seeking the quashing of two FIRs registered against him.

Advocate Sudarshan Suresha along with Advcoates Sainath DM, Neha Venkatesh, Pavana NM, Nandan Patil, Ananya Krishna appeared for the petitioner.