Entertainment

Kangana Ranaut appears before Mumbai court in Javed Akhtar defamation case; proceedings take place behind closed doors

Bollywood Actor Kangana Ranaut appeared before an Andheri magistrate court on Monday and pleaded ‘not guilty’ to lyricist Javed Akhtar’s complaint alleging criminal defamation against her.

With this, the trial in the case can begin. The court had taken cognisance of Akhtar’s complaint and summoned Kangana before it in March last year. She had, however, not appeared before it and sought exemptions from time to time. The lyricist’s complaint had arisen from a TV interview she had given to a channel in which she called him part of a certain gang of Bollywood in the context of the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput. Akhtar had said he had faced social media trolling as a result of the allegations as well as damage to his reputation in family and professional circles.

The court on Monday also recorded her statement verifying the counter complaint she filed against Akhtar alleging extortion, criminal intimidation and outraging modesty of a woman among other offences. Her counter complaint had alleged that she had a public dispute with a co-star and Akhtar called her and her sister Rangoli Chandel to his home and threatened her to apologize to the co-star in the presence of her sister, who she said is a witness to the matter

Media was not allowed to be present in court during both the proceedings. In Kangana’s counter complaint case, her advocate had made a plea in April seeking that her statement be recorded in privacy, which the court had allowed. Metropolitan Magistrate RM Shaikh, however, did not permit media persons to be present in Aktar’s complaint against Kangana too. This was after Kangana’s advocate Rizwan Siddiquee requested the court that nobody be present in court except him and Akhtar’s lawyer Jay Bharadwaj. Magistrate Shaikh then asked mediapersons to leave the courtroom.

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button
Close