Lyricist Javed Akhtar has approached the Bombay High Court against actor Kangana Ranaut. His contention? That she should not be allowed to travel abroad by means of her passport getting renewed, since she has criminal cases pending against her. Javed Akhtar has claimed that Kangana Ranaut deliberately gave a misleading statement in Bombay High Court in order to obtain a favourable order to get her passport renewed. Last month, Ranaut also filed an interim application, seeking that the regional passport authority be directed to renew her passport to enable her to travel to Budapest, Hungary for a film shoot.
The authority was delaying the renewal citing the criminal cases pending against her, Ranaut claimed. Javed Akhtar sought to bring to the attention of the court that Kangana Ranaut had made a false and misleading statement to obtain a favourable verdict. In the plea, Javed Akhtar claimed that the response by Ranaut’s counsel was limited to criminal proceedings arising out of two FIRs and failed to mention about pending criminal defamation case against her filed by him. Hence Akhtar was required to be heard by HC, the petition argued.
In November 2020, Javed Akhtar had filed a criminal defamation complaint against Ranaut over her remarks about him during a TV interview which he deemed defamatory. Akhtar argues that Kangana Ranaut should have brought the factual position before the Court, especially when she was in complete knowledge of the factum of pendency of the criminal case filed by him against her.
Speaking to Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami, Ranaut had claimed back then that after her controversy with actor Hrithik Roshan, Javed Akhtar had called her to his house and asked her to apologise to Roshan, warning her that if she did not do so, she would have to commit suicide.
“Javed Akhtar called me to his house, he said if you do not say sorry to Hrithik Roshan you will commit suicide because they will put you in jail. They have found all the clues, all the evidence. They know the case is completely in their hands,” she said.
The Bombay High Court has disposed of the petition of Kangana Ranaut after the regional passport authority gave an assurance that it would decide on her application expeditiously. Javed Akhtar entering the scene with an angle of his own raises many suspicions. Only recently, Kangana Ranaut had accused the Maha Vikas Aghadi government of deliberately delaying her passport renewal. She also called it the “Mahavinashkari government”.