Veteran writer and lyricist Javed Akhtar on June 12 told the Andheri metropolitan magistrate court in Bombay that certain comments made by Kangana Ranaut to a television news channel soon after the demise of actor Sushant Singh Rajput in June 2020 were “nothing but a lie”. He was being cross-examined by the defence lawyer in the defamation case filed by him against the actress. Javed had filed a complaint in the magistrate’s court in November 2020. He claimed that Kangana had made certain defamatory statements against him in a TV interview, which allegedly damaged his reputation.
In the said interview, Kangana Ranaut had claimed that Javed Akhtar asked her to apologise to co-star Hrithik Roshan, who in 2016 filed a lawsuit against her, seeking an apology after their public spat over a statement on their alleged relationship.
The actress had told the channel, “Once, Javed Akhtar called me to his house and told me, ‘Rakesh Roshan (father of Hrithik Roshan) and his family are very big people. If you don’t apologise to them, you will have nowhere to go. They will put you in jail, and eventually, the only path would be that of destruction… you will commit suicide.’ These were his words. He shouted and yelled at me. I was shaking in his house.”
“Whatever Kangana said in the interview is a lie and nothing but a lie,” Akhtar told the court. He added that she had come to his house to explore some kind of a solution to settle issues with her co-star.