Six months after the police gave a “clean chit” to senior actor Nana Patekar in the alleged sexual harassment case filed against him by her, actress Tanushree Dutta on Thursday filed a protest petition a city court seeking rejection of a “closure report” filed by the Oshiwara police and direction for “further investigations” in the case.
Tanushree, who had earlier on July 8 moved a city court to oppose filed by the police and obtained time from a court to file a Rs protest petition’, Tanushree formally filed the “protest petition” before the Railway Mobile Metropolitan Court at Andheri in north Mumbai, seeking rejection of “B Summary report” (Closure report) filed by the police in the alleged sexual harassment case filed by her against Patekar in October last year.
In the protest petition filed on her behalf by senior Advocate Nitin Satpute, Tanushree urged the court to replace the police officer who had earlier filed “false” closure before the court and sought “further investigations”, if deemed necessary and urged the court to monitor the investigations in line with the law laid down by the Supreme Court in the 2016 Sudhir Bhaskarrao Tambe Vs Hemant Yashwant Dhage case.
After allowing the protest petition filed by the actress, the court adjourned the case for arguments on January 16, 2020.
The investigators file a B-Summary report in a court when they do not find any evidence against the accused person to file a charge-sheet against him and seek a trial.
The ‘protest petition’ is a petition that an aggrieved person or complainant files before a magistrate when he or she is not satisfied with the police report filed before the Court concerned. The complainant may move the petition against the negative police report which is called the “protest petition’ and the same is treated as complaint under Section 190 of Criminal Procedure Code.
Under section 190 of CrPC , the Magistrate may cognisance of the complaint, hear the complainant and inquire into his or her grievance as provided under sections 200 and 202 of Cr. PC.
Among other things, the actress urged the court to subject all the accused, including the investigating officer, and witness nos 5 to 13 to Narco Aanalysis, Lie Detector and Brain Mapping Tests and initiate action against the Investigation Officer (IO) and also launch contempt proceedings concerned.
On June 12, the Oshiwara police had filed a closure report in a local court at Andheri in north-west Mumbai, stating that they had no evidence to prosecute Patekar in the alleged sexual harassment case filed against him by actress Tanushree.
Following the development, Tanushree had alleged that at the behest of Patekar, all her witnesses were silenced by intimidation and fake witnesses were put forth to weaken the case. “. “What was the rush to file a B-summary report when all of my witnesses have not even recorded their statements yet?,” Tanushree had asked.
Acting on a complaint filed by Tanushree on October 6, 2018, the Oshiwara police had registered a First Information Report (FIR) against senior Patekar and three others four days later.
On October 10 last year, the Oshiwara police had formally registered an FIR against Patekar and three others under sections 354 (Assault or criminal force to women with intent to outrage her modesty), 354-A (Assault or use of criminal force with intent to disrobe her) and section 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) of IPC.
In her complaint lodged with the police on October 6, Tanushree had alleged that the incident took place on March 26, 2008 during the shooting of a song in the film “Horn Ok Pleaseee”.
Tanushree had said that the entire song was to be picturised on the actress, while Patekar had only line in the song. She said that before the shoot, she had made it clear to the producer and director that she would not enact or perform any lewd, vulgar or uncomfortable steps in the particular song.
On the 4th day of the shoot, 26th March 2008, while shooting was going on, Nana Patekar’s behaviour was inappropriate towards me. He was on the set despite his work in the song being over and he was grabbing me by the arms and pushing me around on the pretext of teaching me how to dance. When he was teaching indecently and unnecessarily, then I felt very uncomfortable because of his behaviour and I felt he has outraged my modesty,” Tanushree had alleged.
“He (Patekar) told the choreographer and other junior artists to back away so that he could teach me the dance steps through he was not a choreographer and he was not required during the choreography as per my previous rehearsals,” the actress added.
The actress also told the police that she had lodged a complaint with the Cine and TV Artistes Association, which passed the order without considering her complaint for apology.
On his part, Nana Patekar had vehemently denied Tanushree’s allegations, saying that there was no question of his molesting her “as there were around 50 people on set at that time”. In a statement issued through his lawyer, Patekar dismissed the actress’ allegation, terming it as 'a figment of her imagination'.