Court reprieve for Narayan Rane and his son Nitesh Rane

The father-son duo has said for the sake of argument, no reasonable person could come to the conclusion that any offence whatsoever has been made out in respect thereof

Mumbai: The Dindoshi sessions court on Friday temporarily restrained Mumbai police from arresting union minister Narayan Rane and his son Nitesh, a Maharashtra legislator from Kankavli in Konkan region, in connection with a defamation case registered against them at Malwani police station in Mumbai.

The directive came after a special public prosecutor Pradip Gharat sought time to reply to the anticipatory bail application filed by the father-son duo and made a statement that till then they will not be arrested. (Agencies)

The directive came after a special public prosecutor Pradip Gharat sought time to reply to the anticipatory bail application filed by the father-son duo and made a statement that till then they will not be arrested. On the prosecutor’s request, the court posted the pre-arrest bail pleas for hearing on March 10.

The father-son duo has said in the plea that “on perusal of the allegations contained in the First Information Report (FIR) and even assuming that such allegations are correct, for the sake of argument, no reasonable person could come to the conclusion that any offence whatsoever has been made out in respect thereof.

“Prima-facie no case has been made out against the applicant in the present matter,” said their plea. They added that a bare perusal of the FIR makes it clear that it has been registered with ulterior motives and to restrict their movement.

It added that only non-bailable sections in the present FIR are Section 506 II of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 and Section 67 of the Information Technology Act, 2000, but the FIR makes it apparent that the ingredients of these sections were not made out and hence it is obvious that the said sections have been included merely to curtail the liberty of the present Applicants.

They claimed that the first informant was never threatened or intimidated by the applicants. Malwani police has registered a case against the father and son on the complaint of Vasanti Salian, mother of Disha Salian, the ex-manager of late actor Sushant Singh Rajput, after Ranes made public statements about Disha, who died in an accident on June 8.

In her statement to the police, Salian’s mother complained that Rane’s comments had raised a question on their daughter’s character and forced people to start to avoid them. Acting on her complaint, the police have booked the two under sections 211, 500, 504, 509, 506 (2) and 34 of the Indian Penal Code read with section 67 of the Information Technology Act for defamation and words leading to insult modesty of a woman, criminal intimidation and common intention.