‘Judge threatens arrest warrant’: Kangana Ranaut plea to transfer case rejected
Kangana Ranaut filed a request with Mumbai’s additional chief metropolitan magistrate ST Dande to transfer the defamation complaint filed by lyricist Javed Akhtar to another court. On Thursday, the judge rejected the application.
MUMBAI: Additional chief metropolitan magistrate ST Dande on Thursday rejected a fresh plea filed by actor Kangana Ranaut to seek transfer of the defamation case filed against her by lyricist Javed Akhtar from the 10th court at Andheri to any other metropolitan magistrate.
Judge Dande, who reserved his ruling a day earlier after hearing lyricist Javed Akhtar’s lawyer Jay Bhardwaj, delivered his verdict on Thursday. There was no reaction from the actor to the verdict.
In her application, Kangana Ranaut told judge Dhande that she didn’t have faith in the 10th court at Andheri which was hearing Akhtar’s complaint against her. Ranaut’s lawyer Rizwan Siddique said the 10th court magistrate was insisting on her personal appearance without any sufficient reason and without an order which could have justified compelling her to appear in the case involving a bailable, non-cognizable and compoundable offence.
“This court is threatening the accused on every date of issuing an arrest warrant without giving any sufficient cause,” her application said.
Javed Akhtar’s lawyer opposed Kangana Ranaut’s request, arguing that it was only designed to delay proceedings. The grounds mentioned in the present application were raised for the first time after more than 7 months of summoning Kangana with the sole intent to delay the matter, his reply said.
Akhtar filed the defamation complaint against Kangana Ranaut last November for allegedly making defamatory and baseless comments against him in a television interview.
In a counter-complaint filed recently, the actress has alleged that after her dispute with co-star Hrithik Roshan, Akthar had called her and her sister to his house in Juhu with “mala fide intentions and ulterior motives”. She added that Akhtar called her and sister on the pretext of acting as a mediator but instead threatened her and forced her to tender a written apology to Roshan, thus forcefully seeking to create a document in a favour of her co-star.
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