Court warns Kangana Ranaut of arrest warrant if she fails to appear on Sept 20

Mumbai: A metropolitan magistrate court in Andheri has warned that it will issue an arrest warrant against actor Kangana Ranaut if she does not appear before it on Monday (September 20). Kangana is facing defamation proceedings initiated against her by lyricist Javed Akhtar.

Akhtar appeared before the court and was accompanied by wife Shabana Azmi. Kangana was supposed to appear before the court today, but her lawyer Rizwan Siddiqui sought a week’s exemption citing ill-health. He told the court she is experiencing COVID-19 symptoms as she had been travelling for the past 15 days for the promotion of her movie and has met many people. He filed a medical certificate and said it is a genuine reason.

Appearing for Akhtar, his lawyer Jay Bharadwaj opposed the relief and told the court that she has not appeared on a single day and that the plea for exemption was nothing but to delay the matter. He pointed out that the summons was issued to her eight months ago and that Akhtar, on the other hand, has been diligently attending court.

The proceedings emerged from a defamation complaint against her by the lyricist for appearing in a TV interview last year and calling him part of a certain gang when speaking on late actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death. He said his reputation was tarnished, he suffered a lot of harassment on social media and people made phone calls asking him about it, causing him unnecessary distress.