The Bombay High Court on Wednesday granted transit anticipatory bail for three weeks to the writer, the director and the producer of web series Tandav and the content head of Amazon after a criminal case was registered against them in Uttar Pradesh.
A single Bench of Justice P.D. Naik was hearing a plea filed by director Ali Abbas Zafar, producer Himanshu Mehra, writer Gaurav Solanki and content head Aparna Purohit seeking transit anticipatory bail for eight weeks through advocate Aniket Nikam.
Mr. Nikam argued that the atmosphere in Lucknow was tense and that arrangements needed to be made for their protection and therefore temporary relief must be granted. However, Additional Public Prosecutor Yogesh Nakhwa opposed the plea, saying all the accused should appear before the police station in Lucknow and seek a similar relief in court there. Mr Nikam told The Hindu , “We will soon file a petition for quashing the FIR before the Allahabad High Court.”
FIR filed
On January 17, an FIR was registered against all the four at the Hazratganj police station, Lucknow, under Sections 153 (A) (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony), 295 (injuring or defiling place of worship with intent to insult the religion of any class), 505 (1) (B) (with intent to cause, or which is likely to cause, fear or alarm to the public, or to any section of the public whereby any person may be induced to commit an offence against the state or against the public tranquillity), 505 (2) (statements creating or promoting enmity, hatred or ill-will between classes) and 469 (forgery for purpose of harming reputation of the Indian Penal Code, along with Sections 66 (computer-related offences), 66F (punishment for cyber terrorism) and 67 (punishment for publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form) of the Information Technology Act.
Tandav is a series on politics in India and was released on January 15 on Amazon Prime TV and stars Saif Ali Khan, Dimple Kapadia, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayub and others.
