Bombay HC dismisses Kangana Ranaut's plea to quash Javed Akhtar's complaint

The Bombay High Court on Thursday dismissed the plea filed by actor Kangana Ranaut seeking quashing of the criminal defamation proceedings initiated against her by a court in Mumbai based on lyricist Javed Akhtar's complaint. Justice Revati Mohite Dere, who had on September 1 reserved her order on the plea, said the applicant's Kangana Ranaut's petition "stands dismissed".

Ms Ranaut, through her counsel Rizwan Siddiquee, had challenged the defamation proceedings that were initiated by the Andheri Metropolitan Magistrate's court earlier this year, saying that the court had failed to apply its mind to the case.  Akhtar's counsel Jay Bharadwaj, however, told the high court that the magistrate had directed for the police inquiry after going through the lyricist's complaint and excerpts of Kangana Ranaut's interview, in which she had made the alleged defamatory comments. 

Ranaut had said that the case is initiated by the Magistrate “without any application of judicial mind, as he has failed to examine witnesses named in the complaint on oath, as per Section 200 read with Section 202(2) of CrPC; and has instead sought to rely on the same witness-statements which were collected by Police under signatures which is in violation of the provisions of Section 162 of CrPc.”Javed Akhtar had filed the criminal complaint against Kangana Ranaut in November last year before the Andheri metropolitan magistrate for allegedly making defamatory and baseless comments against him in a television interview given to journalist Arnab Goswami.