Union Minister Narayan Rane on Tuesday approached the Bombay High Court challenging the FIRs registered against him in parts of Maharashtra over his remarks against state Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and sought protection from arrest. Rane’s petition, filed through advocate Aniket Nikam, sought quashing of the FIR. The BJP leader also sought an interim order granting him protection from arrest or any coercive action. The petition was mentioned before a division bench of Justice SS Shinde and Justice NJ Jamadar seeking urgent hearing on Tuesday itself.
However, the bench refused to hear it and said that mention (of the petition) is not permissible and asked the counsel to follow the procedure. “File an application before the Registry Department seeking urgent hearing and then we will consider,” the court said. “Everyone has to go through the process. Let us not do the registry work,” the HC said.
The petition challenges the three FIRs lodged against Rane in Pune, Nashik and Raigad against Mahad. Nikam said the police did not follow the procedure laid down in the law before taking steps to arrest Rane. “Summons have not been issued under Section 41A of the Code of Criminal Procedure,” Nikam said.
Under this section the police can issue summons to a person for questioning in cases where arrest is not warranted. Earlier in the day, Rane approached sessions court N Ratnagiri for pre-arrest bail. The sessions court, however, refused to grant any relief, observing that the case was registered at Nashik and, therefore, it was not entitled to hear the application. Rane had sparked a controversy over his remarks about slapping Chief Minister and Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray for claiming the year of India’s independence as ignorance.
“It is shameful that the Chief Minister does not know the year of independence. He leaned back during his speech to ask about the counting of the years of independence. During his ‘Jan Ashirwad Yatra’ in Raigad district on Monday, Rane said that if I were there, I would have given him a slap. The BJP leader and former Shiv Sena chief minister claimed that Thackeray forgot the year of independence while addressing the people of the state on August 15. Rane said Thackeray was supposed to see the year of independence along with his colleagues midway through the speech that day.
Following his remarks, a complaint was lodged against Rane at the Cyber Police Station by the Nashik city Shiv Sena unit chief. Based on the complaint, an FIR was registered against Rane in Nashik under sections 500 (defamation), 505 (2) (mischief), 153-B(1) (c) of the IPC. hatred or malice), a police officer said.
Nashik Police Commissioner Deepak Pandey on Tuesday issued orders for the immediate arrest of Rane after an FIR was lodged against him in the northern Maharashtra city over his remarks against the CM.
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