Special Court grants bail to independent MP-MLA couple Navneet and Ravi Rana

|HT|

A special court on Wednesday granted bail to independent MP-MLA couple Navneet and Ravi Rana in the Matoshree- Hanuman Chalisa case. While granting bail the court imposed some conditions and warned the couple to not commit a similar offence while on bail and the breach of the bail order will lead to the cancellation of bail. The session court has asked the couple to cooperate in the investigation & interrogation. Police have also been directed to issue an advance notice of 24 hours to them.

The Ranas are not allowed to speak to the media on any subjects related to the case and tamper with evidence.

The couple was arrested on April 23 following their call to chant the Hanuman Chalisa in front of Shiv Sena supremo and Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray's family residence ‘Matoshree’.

The lawmaker couple had dropped their plans to chant the Hanuman Chalisa outside Matoshree, but was later booked by the Mumbai Police under several sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including sedition and charges of creating enmity between groups. Arguing their bail pleas, senior advocate Abad Ponda and advocate Rizwan Merchant had contended that the two had no intention to spread hatred, as claimed by the police. They had said that “a citizen has a right to criticise the government so long as it does not incite violence. There is no chance of inciting violence by chanting Hanuman Chalisa.”

Police had opposed their bail pleas. An affidavit filed by the Khar police had said the acts committed by the couple to incite violence in the name of religion and create a law-and-order situation were part of a larger conspiracy to get the Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra dissolved.

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