Hanuman Chalisa Row: MP Navneet Rana, Her MLA Husband Ravi Rana Sent To 14 Days Of Judicial Custody

Hanuman Chalisa Row: The magistrate court dismissed the plea for police remand and the bail application for Navneet Rana will be next heard on April 29.

Amravati MP Navneet Kaur Rana with husband MLA Ravi Rana addresses a press conference, in Mumbai, Friday (Image: PTI)

New Delhi: Amravati MP Navneet Rana and her husband MLA Ravi Rana have been sent to 14 days of judicial custody after they were produced before the Bandra Magistrate Court on Sunday.

The magistrate court dismissed the plea for police remand and the bail application for Navneet Rana will be next heard on April 29. The police had asked the court for the custody of the couple for 7 days.  

Rana couple's lawyer Rizwan Merchant is filing for their bail application after the court-ordered 14-days of judicial custody. The police have been asked to file their say on the bail plea by April 27. 

Merchant also said, "after the FIR was registered by Khar PS on the complaint of Navneet & Ravi Rana against the other side, a second FIR appears to be registered by the police against Navneet Kaur Rana & her husband Ravi Rana i.e. charge of 353 IPC."

He further said, "For the first time, public prosecutor Pradip Gharat, obviously on instructions from the police dept, argued that the case of the accused falls under 124A, which is sedition."

"When he was called upon by us to show that particular part of the remand application or those words which were supposed to have been uttered by the accused to show disaffection towards the state govt, he miserably failed", Rizwan added. 

This comes following their arrest on Saturday from their Khar residence after they cancelled the recitation of Hanuman Chalisa outside Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s private residence ‘Matoshree'.

Mumbai Police on Saturday evening arrested MLA Ravi Rana and his wife, MP Navneet Rana, both Independent legislators from eastern Maharashtra, for allegedly "creating enmity between different groups" after escorting them out of their house in suburban Khar amid high drama.

The development came hours after the couple cancelled their plan to recite the Hanuman Chalisa outside Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray's private residence `Matoshree'. The Ranas were booked under IPC section 153 (A) (Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony), and section 135 of the Mumbai Police Act (violation of prohibitory orders of police), according to a PTI report.

At the Khar police station, Navneet Rana, who is MP from Amravati in Maharashtra, and Ravi Rana, MLA from Badnera in Amravati district, submitted a complaint against chief minister Thackeray, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut, and Sena leader and state transport minister Anil Parab, accusing them of instigating people to `kill' the couple. But no case had been registered yet, police said. Earlier this month, Ravi Rana had demanded that CM Thackeray, who heads the Shiv Sena, recite the Hanuman Chalisa at his residence on Hanuman Jayanti, and announced that if the chief minister did not do so, he would go to Matoshree and recite it.

On Friday, Ravi Rana had said he would visit Matoshree on Saturday. But as his announcement drew a strong reaction from Shiv Sena cadres, on Saturday morning he announced that he and his wife were cancelling their plan so as not to create any law and order situation ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Mumbai on April 24.

But despite their backtracking, another high-voltage drama began as Sena cadres laid a siege to the building in suburban Khar where the couple were staying, and said the Ranas would not be allowed to leave until they apologized for insulting Matoshree, their "temple". Sena workers also tried to break through barricades and enter the building in the morning, but were stopped by police.