Mumbai MM Court issues bailable warrant against Kangana Ranaut in Javed Akhtar’s defamation case

MUMBAI: A Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court in Mumbai has issued a bailable warrant against Bollywood actress Kangana Ranaut in the criminal defamation case filed against her by veteran lyricist Javed Akhtar, after she failed to appear in court despite being summoned.

Kangana was summoned to appear before the Metropolitan Magistrate R R Khan a month back after a report submitted by Juhu Police stated that Akhtar’s claims against the actress were made out for further investigation.

Kangana’s lawyer Advocate Rizwan Siddiquee submitted before the court today that the procedure to examine the witnesses under Section 200 of the Code of Criminal Procedure had not been followed.

He argued that since the procedure was not followed properly, the order of issuing process was bad in law and Kangana would be challenging the same in the High Court.

However, his claims were opposed by Senior Advocate Vrinda Grover along with Advocates Jay K Bharadwaj and Disha Bajaj.

They submitted that neither did Kangana have a stay on the order issuing process against her nor has she filed any petition at the higher court yet.

After hearing both parties briefly, the Court in its detailed order observed that Kangana has liberty to challenge the proceedings before any higher court.

However, since there is no stay order obtained yet, the Court proceeded to issue a bailable warrant against Kangana with returnable date on March 26, 2021. The detailed order is awaited.

Akhtar had moved the Magistrate Court against Kangana claiming that she made derogatory and defamatory comments about him during an interview with a news channel.

He had filed a criminal defamation case under Sections 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code.