Bombay HC rejects Kangana Ranaut’s plea for stay in Javed Akhtar’s defamation case

The Bombay High Court on Friday dismissed actor Kangana Ranaut’s plea for a stay on the proceedings of a defamation complaint filed against her by lyricist Javed Akhtar. Justice P D Naik ruled that the trial in Akhtar’s complaint had already begun, and therefore, the relief sought by Ranaut could not be granted at this stage.
Last month, the actor approached the high court, seeking a stay on Akhtar’s 2020 criminal defamation complaint and requesting that the case be heard alongside her subsequent cross-complaint against him.

“The trial in Akhtar’s complaint has already commenced. The applicant (Ranaut) has preferred this application at a belated stage. Akhtar’s complaint is first in point of time, and the process (notice) has been issued. Considering the factual matrix, no relief can be granted,” stated the court.

While Akhtar’s defamation case against Ranaut is ongoing before the magistrate in Andheri, the sessions court has stayed the latter’s complaint against the lyricist.
In her petition, Ranaut asserted that both cases originated from a meeting between her and Akhtar in 2016, arguing that they should be tried together.
The lyricist opposed the petition, contending in an affidavit through his advocate Jay Bharadwaj that Ranaut had not challenged any order from the magistrate’s court and had baselessly sought a stay on the proceedings.

Akhtar alleged that Ranaut’s move was an attempt to delay the proceedings on his defamation complaint.
In his complaint, the lyricist claimed that Ranaut had defamed and tarnished his “immaculate reputation” by implicating him in actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death during her interview with a news channel in July 2020.

In 2021, Ranaut retaliated by filing a counter-complaint against Akhtar in a magistrate’s court, accusing him of criminal intimidation and insult to modesty. The actor claimed that during a 2016 meeting at Akhtar’s residence, he had criminally intimidated her, demanding an apology to a co-star.