Mumbai Court Magistrate RR Khan has issued a bailable warrant against actor Kangana Ranaut in a criminal defamation case filed by renowned lyricist Javed Akhtar for her alleged defamatory statements on television, reported Bar & Bench.
On February 1, the Metropolitan Magistrate RR Khan had said that there were “sufficient grounds” to proceed against Ranaut for the offence of defamation and summoned her to appear before the Andheri court on March 1 but she failed to appear in person.
According to a report in Bar & Bench, advocate Rizwan Siddiquee appearing for Ranaut submitted before the Magistrate’s Court today, on March 1 that the procedure to examine the witnesses stipulated under section 200 of the Code of Criminal Procedure had not been followed.
His contention was that since the procedure was not followed properly, the order of issuing process was “bad in law” and that Ranaut would be challenging the same in the High Court. However, B&B reported that Senior Advocate Vrinda Grover along with Advocates Jay K Bharadwaj and Disha Bajaj opposed Siddique’s submissions.
Senior Advocate Grover also referred to a tweet by Ranaut to prove that the actor had knowledge about the court’s summon on March 1 and knowingly refused to appear, tweeted LiveLaw.
Adv Vrinda Grover @vrindagrover cited this tweet by Kangana in Court to say that she has knowledge about the case. Following this, the Court issued bailable warrant against her for appearance.https://t.co/FDNotvdDVV pic.twitter.com/2yJTSVK6q6
— Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) March 1, 2021
Grover reportedly argued, “It is the accused’s right to appeal against the order, or even challenge the proceedings. That no one can deny, and no one can stop, not even this Court. However, she failed to comply with the order of this Court and I do not see any stay obtained from a higher court.”
B&B further reported that Magistrate RR Khan, in a detailed order, observed that Ranaut has the liberty to challenge the proceedings before any higher court. However, since there is no stay order obtained on the process against her, the Court proceeded to issue a bailable warrant against her with returnable date on March 26, 2021.
On November 3, 2020, Javed Akhtar had filed a defamation case against Ranaut for allegedly making baseless comments during an interview with Republic TV’s Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami.
According to the complaint, Ranaut alleged Akhtar’s involvement in the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput. She also named him and Mahesh Bhatt as members of a “mafia” that ran the Hindi film industry. Further, she called the veteran poet and lyricist a “so-called atheist”.
“Their (Akhtar and others) whole group is about keeping an eye on who is Islam friendly and who is not Islam friendly,” she said during the TV interview.
The February 1, 2021 order may be read here.
(To be updated with March 1, 2021 order)
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