HC grants transit pre-arrest bail to 'Tandav' director, others


PTI | Mumbai | Updated: 20-01-2021 21:21 IST | Created: 20-01-2021 21:20 IST
HC grants transit pre-arrest bail to 'Tandav' director, others
Representative image Image Credit: ANI
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The Bombay High Court onWednesday granted a transit pre-arrest bail to 'Tandav'director Ali Abbas Zafar, Amazon Prime India head AparnaPurohit, producer Himanshu Mehra and the show's writer GauravSolanki, against whom a case was registered in Lucknow forallegedly hurting religious sentiments through the web series.

Justice P D Naik granted the relief to the four for aperiod of three weeks to enable them to approach the concernedcourt at Lucknow where the FIR was registered against them.

The HC, while granting the interim relief, noted thatthe producers of the web show are in the process of deletingthe objected portion to avoid further controversy.

Lawyers Aabad Ponda and Aniket Nikam, who representedZafar and others, told the high court that the four requiresome time to approach the concerned court in Lucknow for apre-arrest bail and hence require an interim relief fromarrest.

''The (four) applicants are innocent and have beenwrongly implicated in the offences,'' the transit anticipatorybail plea said.

Ponda and Nikam argued that a team of the UttarPradesh police had arrived in Mumbai to arrest the four andhence the protection from arrest was required.

''Since the proceedings are pending in Lucknow, withoutadjudicating on merits, to enable the applicants (Zafar andothers) to approach the competent court for seekingappropriate reliefs, the applicants are granted relief,'' theHC said in its order.

Earlier in the day, a four-member team of UttarPradesh Police arrived in Mumbai to conduct a probe into thecase registered in Lucknow against ''Tandav'', an official said.

The UP Police team is likely to record statements ofthe makers and cast and crew of the Amazon Prime Video'sseries, which has been accused of hurting religious sentimentsfor its depiction of Hindu deities.

The four have been booked under sections 153 A(promoting enmity between different groups on grounds ofreligion, race and so on), 295 (injuring or defiling place ofworship with intent to insult the religion of any class), 501(1)(B) (public mischief with intent to cause fear or alarm) ofthe Indian Penal Code (IPC) and under relevant sections of theInformation Technology Act.

They approached the high court on Wednesday.

At least three FIRs have been lodged against themakers and artists of ''Tandav'' in Uttar Pradesh - at Lucknow,Greater Noida and Shahjahanpur - for alleged inappropriatedepiction of UP Police personnel, deities, and adverseportrayal of a character playing prime minister in the show.

''Tandav'', a nine-episode political thriller starringBollywood A-listers Saif Ali Khan, Dimple Kapadia and MohdZeeshan Ayyub, started streaming last week.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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