Veteran writer and lyricist Javed Akhtar moved the sessions court at Dindoshi in Bombay on July 31 against a lower court order summoning him for charges relating to criminal intimidation and use of word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman, following a complaint by Kangana Ranaut in 2021. He submitted that the magistrate’s court had jumped to conclusions in a hasty and inappropriate manner which had resulted in grave miscarriage of justice.
The plea also said that the magistrate failed to appreciate that the complaint was hopelessly time barred as the maximum time for filing it for an offence punishable up to three years’ imprisonment, is three years from the date of the alleged incident. It said that while the alleged incident is of March 2016, Kangana had filed the complaint before the magistrate’s court about five years later i.e. in 2021.
The plea will be heard on August 8.
In an order pronounced on July 24, a magistrate’s court had directed Javed Akhtar to appear before it on August 5. While the court had dropped charges relating to extortion, it had not dropped the other charges. Ranaut had submitted that in a public dispute between her and Hrithik Roshan, Javed Akhtar had called her to his house and threatened her to tender a written apology.
In his plea against the order issuing summons, Akhtar said that the magistrate had relied on the actress’ contradictory statements and on the version provided by her sister, an interested witness. The plea also said that Kangana did not produce any independent witness.
Javed Akhtar had in November 2020 filed a defamation complaint against the actress before the Andheri metropolitan magistrate’s court. Akhtar said, Kangana’s 2021 complaint against him was filed only as a counter-blast to harass him. This, he added, was borne out by the fact that she never pursued her own complaint and had taken 12 adjournments before finally recording her verification statement.