Filmmaker Avinash Das moves Guj HC for anticipatory bail in case related to sharing Shah's photo

Filmmaker Avinash Das has approached the Gujarat High Court seeking anticipatory bail in a case where is accused of sharing a photo of Union Home Minister Amit Shah with arrested IAS officer Puja Singhal on Twitter.

Das moved the high court after a sessions court here rejected his anticipatory bail in connection with an FIR lodged by the Ahmedabad city crime branch under sections 469 (forgery) of the IPC and provisions of the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act and Information and Technology Act.

The matter came up before the court of Justice Nikhi S Kariel on Wednesday and has been adjourned to June 27.

The city crime branch had registered an FIR against Das after he shared a photo showing Singhal, who was recently arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case, whispering something to Shah. As per the FIR, in a caption to the photo Das had claimed that the picture was taken a few days before Singhal's arrest, when it was actually taken in 2017.

The filmmaker was also booked for insulting the national honour by sharing a photo on his Instagram and Facebook accounts of a woman wearing the tricolour.

Earlier this month, a sessions court had rejected Das' bail plea, after observing that he had deliberately claimed that the photo of Shah with Singhal was taken a few days before the latter's arrest, with the intention to ''tarnish the image of the Home Minister''.

The photo of a woman wrapped in the national flag showed Das' ''mental perverseness'', the court had said in its order.

As a filmmaker, ''it is his prime duty to maintain the dignity of the country and to give respect to the national flag as well as the Honourable Home Minister of India,'' the court had said in its order.

Before that, the Bombay High Court had rejected Das' transit anticipatory bail application. The Mumbai-based filmmaker has directed the 2017 film ''Anaarkali of Aarah'', starring Swara Bhaskar, Sanjay Mishra and Pankaj Tripathi. His 2021 release includes ''Raat Baaki Hai'' and he has also directed the Netflix series ''She''.