Lyricist Javed Akhtar has opposed an application made by actor Kangana Ranaut before the Dindoshi sessions court seeking that the defamation proceedings initiated against her by him be transferred to another court and called her move a ‘delaying tactic’.
In a response filed before the court on Thursday by his advocate Jay Bharadwaj, the veteran lyricist has said that Kangana’s plea is only filed to delay the proceedings before the Andheri magistrate court.
He pointed out that she has unsuccessfully challenged the proceedings before that court five times in the past and the present is her sixth attempt. “From the inception the applicant has been trying to somehow delay and derail the proceedings and has unsuccessfully challenged the procedural aspects followed by the 10th MM (Andheri) court,” it stated.
He called it an ‘orchestrated tactic to delay the proceedings’ and stated that owing to her absence before that court, the trial in it has not commenced.
“Applicant has on every date deployed tactics to delay the matter with intent to procrastinate the matter and to cause further harassment to the Respondent No. 1 - a veteran lyricist and a screenplay writer and a senior citizen aged 76 years,” the response further stated.
Kangana had moved the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate earlier for transfer of the proceedings before the Andheri court and alleged bias by the magistrate while doing so. The plea came to be rejected. She had then approached the Dindoshi sessions court challenging the order. This too had come to be rejected. Recently she moved a plea again under a provision of the CrPC where the court can transfer a case to meet the ends of justice.
Akhar’s defamation proceedings had arisen from an interview Kangana had given to a news channel in the context of actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death. She had called him part of a certain gang of Bollywood in the interview.
