Mumbai Police oppose bail to Rana couple, back sedition charge
India Today
The Mumbai Police has opposed the bail plea of MP Navneet Rana and her husband Ravi Rana, arrested for threatening to protest and recite Hanuman Chalisa outside Uddhav Thackeray’s private residence Matoshree.
The Mumbai Police, in an 18-page document, opposed the bail plea of MP Navneet Rana and her husband Ravi Rana, arrested for threatening to protest outside Uddhav Thackeray’s private residence Matoshree over the escalating Hanuman Chalisa row in the state.
The politician couple moved the special court for MPs and MLAs and sought an early hearing of their plea, submitting that they will not abscond. “They are elected people's representatives and their liberty cannot be curtailed. The police do not even want their custody. They are in judicial custody... They have an 8-year-old daughter. Certain conditions can be set but they should be set free,” their lawyer argued.
Opposing the bail, the Mumbai Police said, "However innocent these pleadings may look like, the respondent says that these submissions are most Hippocratic since the plan to read Hanuman Chalisa at the private residence of the Chief Minister at Matoshree bungalow is a big plot to create a challenge to the law and order situation.”
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The idea of reading a religious text like the Hanuman Chalisa at a private residence without prior permission of the owner is trespass, the Mumbai Police said.
“One cannot give a threat of challenge to the government that he or she wants to act against the procedure established by law even when the same is under the guise or veil of chanting of a religious book.”
It added that the words spoken by the accused were not within the reasonable limits of the fundamental rights of freedom of expression, and hence, their act came within the ambit of offence under Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code - sedition.
