NO REPRIEVE
SC refuses bail to S Ve Shekher, asks him to surrender

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai: 02.06.2018

More than 40 days after sharing an abusive Facebook post about woman journalists, actor and BJP functionary S Ve Shekher failed to earn any reprieve in the Supreme Court.

The apex court refused to grant anticipatory bail to the popular comedian on Friday and, instead, directed him to surrender before a judicial magistrate in court in Chennai and seek regular bail there. The court had earlier stayed Shekher’s arrest.

But on Friday, vacating the interim stay, a vacation

bench of Justice L Nageswara Rao and Mohan M Shantanagoudar directed Shekher to surrender before the jurisdictional magistrate.

During arguments, Tamil Nadu government’s counsel submitted that chargesheet in the case had already been filed by the prosecution. Recording the submission, the court directed the actor to appear before the judicial magistrate and seek regular bail.

The actor had on April 20 shared the controversial facebook post targeting woman journalists, triggering protests and court cases by journalists. When went underground and moved the high court for anticipatory bail, apprehending arrest in the case, journalists joined in as interveners and opposed bail for him.

On May 10, the Madras high court dismissed his bail application with caustic remark: “If sharing bed is the only way for women to come up in life (as per Shekher’s FB post), then does it include all women who are holding high posts now?”

Addressing another important issue concerning social media posts, the court said, “forwarding a message is equal to accepting the message and endorsing it.”

Even after the high court order the actor was not arrested by Tamil Nadu police, prompting filing of another writ petition in the high court alleging that police were reluctant to arrest him because he was a family member of incumbent chief secretary Girija Vaidyanathan. The petition has since been dismissed as withdrawn.