Actor Kangana Ranaut has moved the Mumbai Sessions Court challenging the Magistrate order, which dismissed her plea seeking transfer of the extortion case, filed against veteran lyricist Javed Akhtar, as per a Bar and Bench report.
The extortion case came up during a hearing in September 2021, in the ongoing defamation case filed by Akhtar against the actor.
Back in November 2020, Akhtar had filed a complaint against Ranaut, alleging that she had made defamatory remarks about him during an interview with Republic TV, after actor Sushant Singh Rajput died by suicide on July 14. In the interview, which aired on July 19, 2020, Ranaut said that some of the senior members of the Hindi film industry, including Akhtar, were a part of a “gang” that was against “outsiders” in the industry.
On September 20, 2021, Ranaut had finally appeared in person before the court for the defamation case, after receiving several warnings from the Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court of facing arrest for failing to do so.
Following the hearing, Ranaut filed a counter complaint where she alleged that during the controversy with actor Hrithik Roshan in 2016, Akhtar had invited herself and her sister Rangoli Chandel to his house, forcing her to pen a written apology to Roshan. She also claimed that Akhtar had threatened her with dire consequences, if she refused to do so.
Voicing the lyricist’s alleged threat, Ranaut also stated in her complaint that he had tried to question her character, during the meeting at his house and mentioned, “My co-star, with whom I had a dispute with, had a lot of evidence against me and shall use all such pieces of evidence against me, which will put my moral character to shame and tarnish my public image.”
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On December 18, 2021, the Magistrate court had dismissed the actor’s plea seeking transfer of the complaint, as she had already alleged bias against the Andheri Magistrate hearing the defamation case. She had said that she did not wish to proceed with her extortion complaint, before the same judge.
Earlier, on September 9, 2021, Ranaut’s plea seeking to quash the defamation case alleging bias against the Magistrate, was dismissed by the Bombay High Court.