TVF Founder Arunabh Kumar Walks Free, Pitchers Star Acquitted In 2017 S*xual Harassment Case ( Photo Credit – Instagram )
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Arunabh Kumar the co-founder and producer of The Viral Fever is now a free man. The actor-entrepreneur – who was the CEO of TVF but had to step down after being accused of s*xual harassment by a former employee, has been acquitted in the case.
As per media reports coming in, earlier today, a Mumbai court passed their ruling in favour of the Pitchers actor. Read on to know on what basis the judgment was passed and a little more about the accusation placed against him in 2017.
According to a PTI tweet on Wednesday, a Mumbai court acquitted ex-CEO, Arunabh Kumar of web comedy channel The Viral Fever (TVF) in a s*xual misconduct case filed in 2017. As per the news agency, the court ruled that there was an ‘unexplained and unreasonable’ delay in filing the First Information Report (FIR) in the matter as the reason.
Mumbai court acquits TVF founder Arunabh Kumar in sexual harassment case of 2017, rules that there was "unexplained and unreasonable" delay in filing FIR
As per the prosecution, the alleged incident took place in 2014 but the complaint was filed three years after the incident – when the complainant came across other women making similar allegations on social media. The woman had posted anonymously on medium.com under the title ‘The Indian Uber- That is TVF’, and said that Arunabh Kumar had allegedly molested her during her tenure at the company.
Based on the complaint of the former employee, the Andheri police had registered a case in 2017 against Arunabh Kumar under Indian Penal Code Sections 354 A (causing sexual harassment) and 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman).
In September this year, Metropolitan Magistrate (Andheri court) A I Shaikh acquitted Kumar and in his order mentioned “there is no concrete evidence produced by the prosecution”. The court documents added, “There is material discrepancy and contradiction. There is even unreasonable and unexplained delay in filing the FIR, which raised clouds on the case of the prosecution.”
On the work front, Arunabh Kumar – who stepped down as TVF CEO in 2017 and handed over the reign to Dhawal Gusain, was last seen in Pitchers Season 2.
