in 2010, she refused to allow a petition seeking the constitution of a review committee to examine the authorisation of surveillance and interrogation under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, holding that while this would be a "welcome step," it should be done at the initiative of the State Government, and not the courts.
[11][12][13] In 2018, she rebuked the Maharashtra police for leaking information to the media in relation to ongoing cases filed against persons arrested following the 2018 Bhima Koregaon violence.
[16][17] In 2017, Bhatkar, along with another judge, Girish Kulkarni, and several other persons appointed to a panel by the Bombay High Court, recommended increasing the maximum compensation that could be granted under the Manodhairya Yojana scheme, which allows financial recompense to child and adult survivors of sexual assault, and acid attacks.
[19] She ruled in 2017, that when consent to sexual intercourse was provided under a false promise of a future marriage, it did not constitute rape, but allowed the person accused of this to be tried instead for offences of cheating, criminal intimidation, and assault.
Along with Justice V. K. Tahilramani, she held that the Gujarat police had deliberately failed to record Bano's complaint and were complicit in actively impeding the investigation.
[24] In 2019, Bhatkar passed one of the first orders dismissing charges against a person accused of homosexuality, after the Indian Supreme Court decriminalised consensual sex between same-sex adults in Navtej Singh Johar v Union of India.
[26] She has disclosed two forthcoming books that she is writing; a biography of her husband, the actor Ramesh Bhatkar, and a memoir about her experiences as a judge.
Mrudula Bhatkar has elicited this bitter experience in her recently released book, "हे सांगायला हवं" (Hey Sangaayalaa Hava -- This must be told).
It was a bitter coincidence in the life of a woman judge who was vociferously condemning the accused in her verdicts in cases of crimes against women that her husband had to face charges on similar count.