Prabhakar Kulkarni
A newspaper report about a statement made by the president of the dance bar owners association resulted in a privilege issue and the president Manajitsingh Sethi had to suffer punishment of imprisonment for ninety days.
The case relates to Mr.Sethi’s statement in response to the Maharashtra state home minister R.R.Patil’s announcement about the decision to ban dance bars.(The decision has now been overturned by the Bombay High Court ) Sethi had said that the minister Mr Patil’s decision was foolish and had threatened that the ministers’ wives would not be allowed to move on roads. These statements were published in the Mumbai edition of ‘Sakal’ a Pune-based newspaper organization.
The BJP MLA Sudhir Mangutivar raised this as a privilege issue in the state Assembly. As all MLAs backed the issue the matter was sent to the Assembly’s privilege committee. While clarifying before the committee members Mr.Sethi said the reaction which he had expressed was on behalf of the affected dance bar girls.
The committee members called as witnesses the editor of Mumbai Sakal, Sanjeev Latkar and the concerned correspondent J D Patil. Both confirmed about the veracity of Mr.Sethi’s statement with the addition that no attempt was made by Mr.Sethi to deny or clarify anytime after the publication of the news-report.The committee also questioned Varsha Kale chief of the dance bar girls association. She stressed that Mr.Sethi is in no way related to their association nor is he authorized to speak on behalf of the dance bar girls or their association.
In response to the firm stand by ‘Sakal’ about the publication of the news report and other relevant witnesses, the committee recommended that Mr.Sethi should be punished and the Assembly confirmed the punishment.
Mr.Sethi has now approached the Bombay High Court in the matter.