Case against Thackeray: Court seeks the probe status

"Notice to concerned investigating officer be issued with direction to file status of investigation," said Metropolitan Magistrate Neeraj Gaur.

The court order came after the police filed its report to it saying the investigation of the case has been transferred to the District Investigation Unit (DIU) of North Delhi.

The police had registered an FIR against Thackeray under section 153 A (promoting enmity between different groups on ground of place of birth etc), 153 B (making imputations prejudicial to the national interest) and 505 (making remarks conducive to public mischief) of the Indian Penal Code, after the court asked it on September 27 to register a case.

The case was lodged on a complaint by advocate Prem Shankar Sharma, who had said Thackeray's August 31 remarks, terming Bihar natives as infiltrators and threatening to throw them out of Maharashtra, are provocative and anti-national, for which an FIR must be lodged against him.

Sharma had said in his complaint that "Thackeray's August 31 remarks were defamatory and "his provocative statement is against national integration as the Indian Constitution has given all citizens the right to live anywhere in the country."

The MNS chief had allegedly made the remarks reacting to a media report that Bihar Chief Secretary Navin Kumar wrote to Mumbai Police Commissioner voicing displeasure over the arrest of a youth from Bihar for vandalising the martyr's memorial during the Azad Maidan protest on August 11 in Mumbai.