The Calcutta High Court on Thursday observed that a poster displayed by Bengali actor Sreelekha Mitra during a students' protest in July was "distasteful" and shocked the conscience of the court, while simultaneously granting her relief from arrest in connection with the 16 separate FIRs registered against her over the incident. Justice Saugata Bhattacharya directed the police not to take any coercive steps against Mitra in connection with the cases, even as the court expressed strong disapproval of the poster she had displayed.

The controversy stems from a protest held on July 24 in Kolkata, organized as part of demonstrations against alleged irregularities in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) and broader concerns over transparency in public education, during which Mitra was photographed holding a poster featuring a caricature of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that several complainants described as objectionable and disrespectful.

Following the protest, multiple FIRs were lodged against her across various police stations in West Bengal, including one filed by BJP leader and party spokesperson Keya Ghosh at Anandapur Police Station, with additional complaints registered at the Bidhannagar Cyber Crime Police Station and several other stations across different districts, invoking provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita related to provoking a breach of peace and defamation.

Mitra subsequently approached the Calcutta High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution, seeking quashing of the multiple FIRs and related notices issued against her, arguing that the proceedings all stemmed from a single incident and amounted to an abuse of the criminal process. In her petition, she contended that she had participated in the demonstration in support of the students' movement and had no intention of insulting any constitutional authority or public functionary, expressing regret over the incident in a subsequent public clarification that formed part of her submission to the court.

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During the hearing, senior advocate Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, appearing for Mitra, informed the court that she had already appeared before investigating authorities and would continue to cooperate with the ongoing investigation, while arguing that her alleged conduct, even if accepted as true, did not constitute a criminal offence. The court, however, took a firm view of the nature of the poster itself, stating that the depiction went beyond what could ordinarily be explained as a mere political cartoon. "It shocks the conscience of the Court having seen the nature of the 'cartoon,'" the bench observed, while also cautioning that quashing the proceedings entirely at this stage could risk encouraging similar conduct in the future.

Despite these strong observations, Justice Bhattacharya declined to accept that the alleged conduct necessarily attracted the specific criminal offence under Section 353(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita as claimed by complainants, indicating that the legal threshold for the charge had not clearly been met based on the material presented. As a result, while the court stopped short of quashing the FIRs outright at this stage, it granted Mitra protection from arrest, directing police to refrain from taking any coercive action against her while the matter continues to be examined by the court.

The case has drawn significant attention in West Bengal's political and cultural circles, coming amid a broader wave of protests linked to the NEET controversy that spread across several parts of the country earlier this year, including Delhi and Mumbai, before reaching Kolkata. The incident had also previously triggered a coordinated wave of complaints against Mitra from BJP functionaries across the state, with party leaders demanding her immediate arrest over what they described as a deliberate and public insult directed at the country's constitutional head. The matter is expected to continue before the Calcutta High Court, with further hearings likely to determine the final status of the FIRs registered against the actor.

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