Court seeks Mumbai police’s reply to bail plea of Rana couple in sedition FIR

By PTI

MUMBAI: A periods courtroom right here on Tuesday requested the Mumbai police to file on April 29 their reply to a bail utility of jailed impartial MP Navneet Rana and her MLA husband, MLA Ravi Rana.

The couple had on Monday moved the courtroom searching for bail in an FIR registered by the Mumbai police towards them on fees of sedition and selling enmity, after they gave a name to recite Hanuman Chalisa outdoors Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s personal residence ‘Matoshree’ in suburban Bandra.

When the matter got here up for listening to within the courtroom on Tuesday, the police mentioned they wish to reply with an affidavit to the bail plea. The courtroom accepted this and posted the matter for additional listening to on April 29.

The Ranas have been arrested by the Mumbai police on Saturday.

Ranas’ advocate Rizwan Merchant on Monday mentioned the couple determined to withdraw their bail plea pending earlier than the Bandra Justice of the Peace courtroom that had remanded them to 14-day judicial custody on Sunday.

Merchant had mentioned the suburban Khar police initially booked the Ranas underneath Indian Penal Code Section 153(A), for allegedly selling enmity between totally different teams.

At the time of their remand, the police knowledgeable the Justice of the Peace courtroom that that they had added the cost of sedition, underneath IPC Section 124A, towards the couple within the first FIR.

Their bail plea mentioned the decision to recite the Hanuman Chalisa outdoors ‘Matoshree’ was not a calculated transfer to advertise emotions of enmity or hatred and the cost underneath part 153(A) can’t be sustained.

There was no intention on a part of the candidates to instigate or create hatred by providing Hanuman Chalisa close to ‘Matoshree’, the couple mentioned of their plea.

It is submitted that by no stretch of creativeness can the acts of the candidates be acknowledged to represent the offence of sedition, the plea mentioned.

Further, the Mumbai police had issued discover underneath part 149 of the CrPC and the applicant (Navneet Rana) had complied with the police’s course and never stepped out of her residence, it added.

Navneet Rana, the Lok Sabha MP from Amravati in japanese Maharashtra, and Ravi Rana, the MLA from Badnera in Amravati, had ultimately dropped their plan to recite the Hanuman Chalisa (hymns devoted to Lord Hanuman) on Saturday outdoors Thackeray’s house, citing the go to of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Mumbai for an occasion on Sunday.