Actor Kangana Ranaut on Monday sought quashing of the first information report registered against her on sedition charges, saying that none of her tweets ever incited violence or led to any criminal acts, reported PTI.
Advocate Rizwan Siddique, representing Ranaut, told the Bombay High Court bench of Justices SS Shinde and Manish Pitale that the Bandra magistrate court had erred in allowing the registration of the FIR against the actor and her sister Rangoli Chandel.
“There is absolute non-application of mind in the [Bandra] court’s order,” Siddique said on behalf of Ranaut. “Even the sections invoked against me do not constitute any offence. None of my tweets have invoked any reactions from the public. They will not attract a punishment as they were not followed by violence. What happened after the tweet? Was there any criminal act after my tweets?”
The High Court will continue hearing the arguments on February 26. The interim protection from arrest granted to Ranaut and Chandel will continue till then.
Earlier on January 11, the Bombay High Court had extended the interim relief to Ranaut and Chandel in the sedition case. Ranaut and Chandel had recorded their statement in the case at the Bandra police station on January 8. They were questioned for over two hours.
The case pertains to an FIR registered against Ranaut and Chandel, as directed by a Mumbai court, in October for allegedly trying to create hatred and communal tension through their social media posts.
The complainant, Munnawarali Sayyed, had argued that an investigation was needed to ascertain the motive behind the tweets by the sisters and to find out “who are the people backing such hatred to create communal tensions and sentiments against the government”. He had also accused Ranaut of “maliciously bringing religion in all her tweets”.
Ranaut and her sister were booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code pertaining to committing malicious or deliberate acts with the intention of outraging religious feelings of citizens, sedition, promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence or language and common intention. They moved the High Court on November 23 seeking to quash the FIR against them.
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