NO COERCIVE ACTION AGAINST RANE TILL SEPT 30: STATE TO HC

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court (HC) has asked Union minister Narayan Rane to file separate petitions to challenge the various first information reports (FIRs) registered against him in different cities over his remarks against chief minister Uddhav Thackeray in August.

Rane had filed a petition seeking quashing of the FIR by Nashik Cyber police and had sought to include cases in Mahad, Thane, Pune, Ahmednagar and Jalgaon, too, in the plea.

However on Friday, after the state assured that no coercive action will be taken against Rane till September 30, the court directed him to file separate petitions instead of one.

The division bench of justice SS Shinde and justice NJ Jamadar, while hearing Rane’s petition, was informed by senior counsel Ashok Mundargi and advocate Aniket Nikam that the Rajya Sabha member has amended the plea and had included details of all six FIRs registered against him.

In an earlier hearing, after the state had given an assurance that it would not take coercive action against Rane with regards to the FIR registered at Nashik, the minister had sought similar assurances regarding other cases as well so that he could amend the petition and add details of other FIRs.

On Friday, after HC was told that details of all FIRs had been included in the plea, the court said, “The FIRs are of different police stations of different jurisdictions. Let the challenge to each FIR be in separate petitions. It will be more convenient for prosecution in taking instructions from each police station.”

When the bench added that all petitions would be tagged and heard together, Mundargi agreed but sought a blanket interim protection in all FIRs till the petitions were filed.

Additional public prosecutor JP Yagnik informed HC that after the petitioner had assured of cooperation with the Nashik Police on August 25, the state had assured that it would not take any coercive steps against Rane till the next date of hearing. However, as he has been asked to appear before Nashik Police on September 25, the state was willing to extend its assurance.

The petitions will come up for hearing on September 30.