Maharashtra’s MP-MLA couple Navneet Rana and Ravi Rana, arrested over the Hanuman Chalisa row, were on Wednesday granted conditional bail. But the couple is likely to be released on Thursday as necessary documents did not reach the prisons where they are lodged in time, their lawyers said.
Independent Lok Sabha MP Navneet Rana and her MLA-husband Ravi Rana were arrested on April 23 following their public declaration of reciting the Hanuman Chalisa outside Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s private residence Matoshree’ in suburban Bandra. They had eventually dropped their plan citing the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Mumbai for an event.
The couple had moved the court seeking bail in an FIR registered by the Mumbai Police against them on charges of sedition and promoting enmity.
The conditions of bail include that the couple shall not hamper investigation or influence witnesses, they should not commit a similar criminal offence that entails the cancellation of bail and should furnish a surety of Rs 50,000 each. Apart from this, they are also restrained from speaking to the media.
On Saturday, both the prosecution and defence completed their arguments on the bail application. Their bail plea said the call to recite the Hanuman Chalisa outside ‘Matoshree’ cannot be said to be aimed at promoting feelings of enmity or hatred among different groups and this charge under IPC section 153(A) cannot be sustained.
There was no intention on the part of the applicants (Ranas) to instigate people or spread hatred by reciting the Hanuman Chalisa near the CM’s private residence, their plea said.”It is submitted that by no stretch of the imagination, can the acts of the Applicants be stated to constitute the offence of sedition,” the plea said.
Meanwhile, a team of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) visited their flat in Mumbai for inspection of alleged illegal construction. There was a complaint about illegal construction on the eighth floor of the Lavie building where the Ranas have an apartment, an official said. The BMC team is likely to visit the house on Thursday or Friday, he added.
Speaking to reporters in Nagpur, BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis said the Mumbai Police’s decision to arrest the couple `for reciting the Hanuman Chalisa’ was “foolishness”, and the grant of bail by the court proved that.
(With PTI inputs)
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