Failing to establish offences, the police has dropped three of the four charges against Jadavpur University (JU) professor Ambikesh Mahapatra in its chargesheet filed before the court into the cartoon controversy. On Friday, Prof. Mahapatra said that the withdrawal of three serious charges, including defamation of chief minister Mamata Banerjee, proved his innocence. Surprisingly, the chief minister claimed that the cartoon was meant to “vanish” her.
The sections which the police booked him under earlier but dropped later are 500 (defamation), 509 (insult the modesty of a woman) and 114 (presence of the abettor during the crime) of the IPC. The other offence — delivery of insulting electronic message under Section 66A(b) of the Information Technology Act — is the only charge that has been brought against the chemistry professor by the police in the chargesheet.
Prof. Mahapatra said, “The police dropped the three charges after failing to substantiate them in want of evidence. I still hold that my act was innocent. Although I had no motive, I even apologised via email to all the residents of our housing society in case I had hurt anybody’s sentiment. The copy of my apology was collected by the police.”