Actor Kangana Ranaut has approached the Dindoshi sessions court in Mumbai, seeking quashing of a bailable warrant against her by the Andheri Metropolitan Magistrate court. As per reports, lyricist Javed Akhtar has filed a criminal defamation case against Ranaut for her remarks against him in an interview with Arnab Goswami.
According to Akhtar, on 19 July 2020, Ranaut had given an interview to a news channel wherein she spoke about her conversation with the lyricist at his house and has made defamatory comments against him in the interview that damaged his reputation.
According to Akhtar, Ranaut had made some statements that were ‘false and malicious, with reckless disregard to the truth, by indulging in deliberate misrepresentation, misstatements, and suppression, with the intent of harming and lowering the reputation of Akhtar in the eyes of the general public.’ Citing the above allegations, Akhtar sought for a non-bailable warrant to be issued against Ranaut.
Nonetheless, on February 1, Andheri Metropolitan Magistrate, RR Khan had said, ‘keeping in view the nature of litigation, it appears to be a harsh step.’ So, the court issued a bailable warrant of Rs 10,000 for ‘wilful absence,’ ‘without any justified reasons, despite service of summons’ against Ranaut.
The court then issued a summon to Ranaut to appear before the court on 1 March 2021, which Ranaut failed to. Meanwhile, Akhtar’s lawyers Vrinda Grover and Jay Bharadwaj had alleged that despite being in Mumbai, she did not pay heed to the summon.
However, in her revision application filed in the Sessions Court, Ranaut has said the procedure under section 200 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which requires even witnesses to be examined on oath before the process is issued under section 204 of the Cr. P.C was not followed.
Earlier, Ranaut has also approached the Supreme Court seeking transfer of four criminal cases pending against her in various Mumbai courts to Shimla, Himachal Pradesh. Out of those four cases, one was this case filed by Javed Akhtar against her.
