Kangana Ranaut Challenges CMM's Order Rejecting Her Plea For Transfer Of Defamation Case Filed By Javed Akhtar

Bollywood actor Kangana Ranaut on Friday moved the sessions court here against a lower court's order rejecting her application seeking transfer of the criminal defamation case filed against her by lyricist Javed Akhtar. The chief metropolitan magistrate (CMM) had dismissed her plea seeking transfer of case from the Andheri magistrate's court in October. Ranaut's review application, filed before the Borivali sessions court through advocate Rizwan Siddiquee, said the CMM failed to appreciate that the magistrate had "misused" his powers to cause intentional injury to the applicant (her case).

Earlier, the actor had said in her transfer petition before the CMM that she had "lost faith" in the Andheri metropolitan magistrate's court as it indirectly "threatened" to issue a warrant if she failed to appear before it in a bailable offence. Akhtar filed the defamation complaint before the Andheri court in November 2020 over certain statements made by Ranaut during a TV interview.

Javed Akhtar had demanded a non-bailable warrant against Kangana on Monday (December 13), by moving an application before the court. Meanwhile, Kangana Ranaut had appeared before the Andheri Magistrate court on September 20 in connection with the aforementioned case. It must be noted that this was the actress's first court appearance since summons were issued to her in February 2021.

The Bombay High Court had earlier dismissed a plea filed by Kangana seeking quashing of proceedings initiated against her. Her lawyer, Rizwan Siddique had said at the time that he had filed an application to transfer the case from the Andheri court. He had said, "This court has many times said that it will issue a warrant against her so Kangana is not comfortable this court hearing her matter."