The Bombay High Court on Wednesday, September 2, 2026, directed the Maharashtra government to file an affidavit clarifying the exact timing of the registration of the First Information Report (FIR) against former MP Navneet Rana and her husband, MLA Ravi Rana, in connection with the Hanuman Chalisa recitation incident of April 23, 2022. The order was passed by Justice Shivkumar Dige while hearing a revision petition filed by the couple challenging a 2024 special court order that refused to discharge them from the case.
The court’s direction came after Advocate Rizwan Merchant, appearing for the petitioners, raised a discrepancy between the station diary entry and the recorded time of the FIR. He submitted that the station diary of Khar Police Station indicated that officers left the police station at 5:03 PM on April 23, 2022, to arrest the couple. However, the FIR, registered under Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code (promoting enmity between groups), was recorded as having been lodged at 5:23 PM on the same day. Merchant argued that this 20-minute gap meant the police proceeded to arrest the couple based on an FIR that had not yet been formally registered, rendering the arrest procedurally invalid.
He further contended that the couple’s residence was reached by the police at approximately 5:15 PM, which was still before the 5:23 PM FIR registration time. Therefore, according to the defence, the police had no legal basis to effect an arrest for an offence under a FIR that did not exist at the time of their arrival at the petitioners’ residence.
In response, the State’s prosecutor submitted that the police had received information at 4:30 PM on April 23, 2022, that the couple intended to recite the Hanuman Chalisa outside the then Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s residence, Matoshree, in Bandra. The prosecutor stated that the FIR was registered immediately after receiving this information, well before the 5:03 PM station diary entry. The delay in the FIR appearing on the online portal, which showed a timestamp of 5:23 PM, was attributed to a technical lag in uploading the document, not a delay in its actual registration.
The bench, after hearing both submissions, sought clarification from the prosecution on whether the couple had actually attempted or recited the Hanuman Chalisa outside Matoshree. Advocate Merchant replied in the negative, stating that no such recitation took place. The judge noted this submission and then directed the prosecutor to file a detailed affidavit addressing the timing of the FIR registration, including the exact time of receipt of information, the time of actual registration, and the reason for the discrepancy in the portal timestamp.
The court granted the State time till September 23, 2026, to file its affidavit. The matter was adjourned to that date for further hearing. The court emphasized that the affidavit must clarify the State’s position on the sequence of events on April 23, 2022, particularly whether the FIR was registered before the police left the station to effect the arrest.
The case, titled Navneet Rana vs State of Maharashtra, stems from the couple’s 2022 announcement to recite the Hanuman Chalisa outside the Chief Minister’s residence, which led to their arrest and subsequent prosecution under Section 153A IPC. The revision petition challenges the special court’s refusal to discharge them, citing procedural irregularities in the FIR registration and arrest process. The Bombay High Court’s current order focuses narrowly on the procedural aspect of FIR timing, without commenting on the merits of the case or the substantive allegations.