The Supreme Court on Thursday directed Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Nitesh Rane to surrender before a trial court and file a regular bail application in the attempt to murder case filed against him in Sindhudurg district of Maharashtra last month, ANI reported.

The Supreme Court, however, granted him protection from arrest for 10 days. Rane had moved the Supreme Court after the Bombay High Court on January 17 rejected his anticipatory bail plea in the case.

Rane, the son of Union minister Narayan Rane, is accused conspiring to murder Shiv Sena member Santosh Parab.

At Thursday’s hearing in the Supreme Court, Rane’s lawyers, Senior Advocates Mukul Rohatgi and Sidharth Luthra, submitted that the charges were “completely bogus”, The Hindu reported. Meanwhile, the prosecution claimed that Rane and other accused were part of a “deep-rooted conspiracy” to stab the complainant using a “paper-cutter”.

The Supreme Court bench led by Chief Justice of India NV Ramana refused to go into the merits of the case.

“We are not here to decide the facts... That is for the trial court,” The Hindu quoted the bench as saying.

The case

In his complaint, Parab had alleged that on December 18, a car without a number plate had hit his bike in Kankavli city of Maharashtra’s Sindhudurg district.

Parab alleged that he was assaulted by people who were in the car and that he had heard one of them telling another person that they “should inform [co-accused] Gotya Sawant and Nitesh Rane” about the attack.

Rane had initially approached a sessions court in Sindhudurg district, which rejected his anticipatory bail plea last month. On January 17, the Bombay High Court also rejected his pre-arrest bail petition, but asked the Maharashtra government to not take any coercive actions against Nitesh Rane till January 27 so that he could approach the Supreme Court.