Veteran lyricist Javed Akhtar submitted during a court in Mumbai today that actor Kangana Ranaut’s petition seeking transfer of the criminal defamation case filed by him against her was “devoid of any merits” and geared toward delaying the proceedings.
Kangana Ranaut had last month filed the petition before the chief metropolitan magistrate seeking transfer of hearing into the complaint to a different court, saying she had “lost faith” within the magistrate’s court because it indirectly “threatened” her of issuing a warrant if she didn’t appear before it in a very bailable offence.
In his written reply, filed through lawyer Jay Bharadwaj, Javed Akhtar said “The present transfer petition is empty of all merits and is prone to be dismissed at the very threshold.”
“The same is just filed to delay the proceedings before the Andheri metropolitan magistrate’s court (which is currently presiding over the case),” he said.
“The grounds mentioned within the present application were raised for the primary time after over seven months of summoning of the applicant (Kangana Ranaut) with the only intent to delay the matter,” it said.
Multiple petitions filed by the actor against the magistrate court’s proceeding are rejected by both – the sessions court and also the Bombay judicature.
She had also filed a transfer petition before the Supreme Court. However, the petition had some defects and was declared “infructuous” for not following the specified procedures, Javed Akhtar said.
“This clearly goes on to indicate that the current petition is an orchestrated tactic to delay the proceedings pending,” it added.
The matter has been posted for hearing on October 18.
Javed Akhtar, 76, had filed the complaint within the court in November last year, claiming that Kangana Ranaut had made defamatory statements against him during a television interview, which allegedly damaged his reputation.
In his complaint, Javed Akhtar claimed that Kangana Ranaut dragged his name during an interview while concerning a ‘coterie’ existing in Bollywood, following the alleged suicide committed by actor Sushant Singh Rajput in June last year.
Kangana Ranaut has also moved a counter complaint within the court against Javed Akhtar for alleged “extortion and criminal intimidation” before the metropolitan magistrate court.
The actor in her complaint against Javed Akhtar said following her public dispute together with her co-star, the lyricist had called her and her sister Rangoli Chandel to his house with “malafide intentions and ulterior motives then criminally intimidated and threatened” her.
As per the complaint, Javed Akhtar had forced Kangana Ranaut to tender a written apology to her co-star.
