Mumbai: Actor Kangana Ranaut, against whom lyricist Javed Akhtar had filed a defamation complaint in a city magistrate court, has sought permanent exemption from the court from attending the trial in the case due to work commitments.
In her plea, she has said that she is one of the topmost actresses in the Hindi film industry and has won several prestigious awards including National awards as well as the Padma Shri.
She added that she has to travel extensively and even abroad for professional commitments and pointed out that production houses make huge monetary investments to book such shooting locations. “Attending the dates of trial on a regular basis will require the accused to travel miles from different work locations causing the applicant undue hardships..” her plea stated, adding that she as well as the production houses will incur huge financial losses.
She said she would remain present before the court when ‘essentially’ required. Akhtar had filed a criminal defamation complaint against the actor for making comments in an interview to Republic TV on July 20, 2020 wherein she had called him part of a certain “gang” in context of late actor Sushant Singh Rajput death case.
Akhtar had stated about the social media trolling he faced as a result of her allegations. The court had taken cognizance of his complaint and summoned Kangana before it in March.
