Bombay HC adjourns Kangana Ranaut's plea for passport renewal to 25 June

The Bombay High Court on Tuesday adjourned to 25 June the hearing on an application filed by actor Kangana Ranaut who stated that the Passport Authority had refused to renew her passport citing an FIR registered against her by the Mumbai Police. A bench of Justices PB Varale and SP Tavade adjourned the hearing after noting that Ranaut had failed to implead the Passport Authority as a party in the case. The bench also said that Ranaut’s application was “vague” and did not place all relevant facts on record. In her interim application filed through advocate Rizwan Siddiquee, Ranaut said the Passport Authority had refused to renew her passport on account of an FIR registered against her and her sister Rangoli Chandel by the Bandra police earlier this year over some comments they had allegedly made on Twitter in October last year, which the FIR claimed promoted enmity between communities. Advocate Rizwan Merchant, who appeared in the HC on behalf of the complainant Munnawarali Sayyed, told the bench that Ranaut’s application did not contain any order of the Passport Authority that was under challenge. Siddiquee responded saying that the Passport Authority had raised a verbal objection to Ranaut’s passport renewal application. To this, the high court bench said it could not pass any orders on mere oral submissions by a party. The high court also noted that while Ranaut in her application had sought relief only for herself, her sister’s name was also mentioned as an applicant. The bench accordingly granted advocate Siddiquee the liberty to amend the application and to implead the Passport Authority as a party by the end of the day. The bench also dismissed Siddiquee’s request for an earlier date of hearing. Siddiquee said Ranaut needed to travel out of India for the shooting of her film whose schedule had been fixed for later this week. However, the HC said that June 25 was the earliest date it could assign for the hearing. “It is just a film. The schedule can be changed. First of all, the application is vague. If she (Ranaut) was so vigilant, she could have approached the court with all details in advance. It is just a matter of one week, a film production takes over a year. June 25 is the earliest date we can give,” the judges said. In her application filed on Monday, Ranaut had said she needed to travel to Budapest this month for the shooting of her upcoming film ‘Dhakkad’ and thus, needed her passport renewed.