  The planar Hall effect (PHE), the appearance of an in-plane transverse
voltage in the presence of co-planar electric ($\mathbf{E}$) and magnetic
($\mathbf{B}$) fields, occurs in regular Weyl semimetals (WSMs) as one of the
fundamental manifestations of chiral anomaly. A major issue, therefore, is
whether there are alternate route to PHE, without invoking chiral anomaly. We
demonstrate that PHE exists in an inhomogeneous Weyl semimetal (IWSM) even in
the absence of the aforesaid anomaly. Using semiclassical Boltzmann transport
theory, we show that PHE appears in an IWSM due to the strain-induced chiral
gauge potential, which couples to the Weyl fermions of opposite chirality with
opposite sign. Our study shows a resultant phase shift in the current
associated with opposite chirality Weyl nodes, which, remarkably, leads to a
finite chirality-dependent planar Hall effect (CPHE) in the IWSMs.
Interestingly, we show that a small tilt in the Weyl node can generate a pure
CPHE even in the absence of an applied magnetic field. The CPHE has important
implications in `chiralitytronics'. We also discuss the experimental
feasibility of these novel effects of strain in type-I IWSMs.
