Maharashtra Minister Jitendra Awhad.
| Photo Credit: Vivek Bendre

The Maharashtra Police on July 18 informed the Bombay High Court that they have consolidated all the seven First Information Reports (FIRs) lodged against the former Maharashtra cabinet minister and NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) leader Jitendra Awhad to transfer it to Shirdi police station for further investigation as that is where the comments were made earlier this year. The FIRs were lodged against the minister for delivering controversial religious speech in the temple town of Maharashtra’s Shirdi about Hindu deity, Ram.  

Appearing for the minister, advocate Vinod Utekar and advocate Sagar Joshi pleaded the division Bench of judges, Justice Revati Mohite-Dere and Justice Arun Pednekar that instead of transferring the FIRs to Shirdi, transfer the FIRs to either at Vartak Nagar Police Station or at Navghar Police Station in Thane where he lives.  

However, the Additional Public Prosecutor K. V. Saste contended that since the offence had first occurred in Shirdi, all the cases lodged against him across Maharashtra, have to be consolidated and moved to Shirdi police station only.   

After hearing the arguments, the Bench accepted the police statement and disposed of the petition. 

The seven FIRs against Mr. Awhad were registered in Mumbai (two), Shirdi (one), Pune (one), Thane city (one), Thane rural (one) and Yavatmal (one) for calling the Hindu deity, Ram, a “non-vegetarian” God at a party meeting in Shirdi. The respective police stations have registered the FIRs under Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code of 1860, a hate speech law that prohibits deliberate and malicious acts intended to insult or outrage the religious beliefs of any class of citizens of India. 

Some of the FIRs were lodged by the BJP functionaries during the consecration ceremony of Ram idol in Ayodhya in January this year. Around the same time, BJP MLA Ram Kadam had also asked the Maharashtra State government to ban the sale of alcohol and meat on January 22, the consecration ceremony day in Ayodhya.  

Around the same time, Mr. Awhad delivered a speech while addressing NCP workers and said, “Ram is ours. Ram belongs to the Bahujans. Ram, who hunts and eats, is ours. When you people go to make us all vegetarian, we follow the ideals of Ram, and today we eat mutton. This is the ideal of Ram. Ram was not a vegetarian; he was a non-vegetarian.”  

Questioning the mythology, the minister drew criticism by saying that it is difficult to believe that a person (Lord Ram) living in forest for 14 years, would depend on a vegetarian diet. In his defence, he claimed that all his comments were based on research, and he did not intend to hurt sentiments and if anyone is offended, he issued an apology. Despite issuing an apology, the next day, multiple FIRs were registered across the state against him.