South Mumbai assault: Cuffe Parade resident takes back his complaint

Cuffe Parade resident retracts his complaint and HC quashes an FIR against pub, after the waiters who had assaulted him apologised

Sometimes, an apology is all it takes to resolve a dispute. The high court has quashed an FIR against a popular SoBo pub after the complainant retracted his complaint. The move follows an unconditional apology from the Kala Ghoda pub, 145, to the complainant, businessman Amit Mehra, for misbehaving with him and, consequently, assaulting him.

The scuffle took place on September 25, 2016, when Mehra – a resident of Sea Lord, Cuffe Parade – had dropped in to the restaurant with his wife and over 30 friends. The FIR states, "In a bill delivered to Mehra by a waiter around 6.45 pm, the pub had charged him R88,000. It perturbed the businessman, who expected the bill to be around R55,000. On asking about it, the waiter said that Mehra had ordered 56 jäger bomb shots. Refusing to believe it, Mehra asked the pub authorities to check their CCTV foot­age." The argume­nt escalated fast and Mehra slapped the waiter. Immediately, other waiters gathered around in support and thrashed Mehra.

Consequently, Mehra filed a complaint with the MRA police, naming seven of the waiters – Rangopant Huddar, Shekhar Biswas, Siddhesh Sharma, Amol Subramaniam, Kiran Naika and Lalit Rathod. Months later, these waiters sent a written apology to Mehra. "The waiters, then, moved the high court to nullify the FIR, after Amit Mehra gave a no objection statement," Mehra’s spokesperson Vishal Manghnani of Wishman consultants said.

The division bench has asked the pub to pay R10,000 as fine to the Maharashtra State Legal Aid Services Authority.

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