Mumbai: Actor Kangana Ranaut and her sister Rangoli Chandel have filed a petition before Bombay High Court to seek quashing of criminal proceedings initiated against them and, in the interim, to stay an investigation into allegations of promoting communal disharmony. HC will hear the matter on Tuesday.

The 34-year-old actor and her sister have been served three notices by Bandra police so far to appear before them for recording of statements but have failed to turn up. Ranaut wants HC to quash the “absolutely vague and baseless” FIR lodged by the police accusing her of sedition, promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, and hurting religious sentiments through her social media posts.

Munnawar Ali Sayyed, a casting director, had approached the magistrate court at Bandra with a complaint against them. On October 16, metropolitan magistrate J Y Ghule had ordered police to take necessary action and investigate. Bandra police subsequently lodged an FIR.

Ranaut’s petition raised technical grounds such as the complainant not waiting for a “mandatory” period of 15 days for police to act on a complaint before escalating it. It questioned “whether the magistrate had erred in accepting the complaint within 14 days instead of the mandatory 15 days”. It said after Sayyed filed a complaint with Bandra police on September 16, he sent a “defective” complaint to a deputy commissioner of police on October 1. Then, on October 15, he filed a “flawed and ambiguous affidavit” with his “premature application” seeking orders from the magistrate court, alleging police inaction.

The law allows a person to file a ‘private complaint’ alleging police refusal to lodge an FIR. The magistrate can direct its registration and investigation.

Bandra police sent notices to the sisters to appear before them on October 26 and then on November 9. But they sought time stating they were busy with their brother’s wedding in Himachal Pradesh. The third notice asked them to appear on Monday. The petition said, “The magistrate did not even justify how any of the tweets promote enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race etc, or acts prejudicial to maintenance of communal harmony to attract offence under Section 153(A) of IPC.” The petition cites Supreme Court judgments to argue that sedition cannot be invoked merely over posts without actual incitement to violence.

The sisters said Sayyed has “blatantly misused” the judicial machinery and said HC has the power to quash an FIR, which is an abuse of the process of law and they are “continuously being served summons by police”, hence the “urgency”.