Ex-Cong MLA Gets 2 Years Jail for Morphing Mohan Bhagwat’s Photo

Former Congress MLA Kalpana Parulekar was granted bail.

Former Congress MLA Kalpana Parulekar and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat.

(Photo Courtesy: Reuters/Twitter/Altered by The Quint)

A Bhopal court on Tuesday, 3 October, awarded two years rigorous imprisonment to former Congress MLA Kalpana Parulekar in a case of morphing a photograph of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat.

The court granted her bail after pronouncing the sentence.

Additional district judge Arvind Kumar Goyal sentenced Parulekar to rigorous imprisonment for two years and fined her Rs 12,000 for using a morphed picture of Bhagwat to show former state Lokayukta PP Naolekar as an RSS worker.

She was convicted under the provisions of the Information Technology Act and different sections of the Indian Penal Code.

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According to the prosecution, Parulekar had, on 29 November 2011, while addressing a media conference inside the Madhya Pradesh assembly premises, criticised then state Lokayukta Naolekar and accused him of having links with the RSS.

To establish her allegations, she produced a photograph purportedly showing Naolekar in RSS uniform.

The prosecution alleged that the photograph had been created after doctoring Bhagwat's picture clicked on 18 November 2010 in Jharkhand.

After this, a man named Gopal Krishna Dandotiya had lodged a complaint with the Madhya Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) against Parulekar which was later transferred to the CID.

Soon after her conviction, her lawyer moved an application for bail which was granted.

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