'Kangana Ranaut suppressed facts in her passport renewal case': Javed Akhtar's plea to HC

Javed Akhtar approached the Bombay High Court over Kangana Ranaut’s statements in her petition seeking expeditious renewal of her passport. The writer-lyricist alleged that the actor failed to disclose his case of criminal defamation against the actor in her petition. In his intervention plea, he claimed that Ranaut deliberately did so to obtain a favourable verdict in the case.

Javed Akhtar approaches High Court on Kangana Ranaut’s passport renewal plea

Akhtar sought to intervene in Ranaut’s writ petition filed by Ranaut, challenging the First Information Report filed against her after the writer of the book of Didda: Warrior Queen of Kashmir alleged copyright infringement. The actor had also filed an interim application before the court, seeking that the regional passport authority be directed to renew her passport. She had claimed that the authority was delaying the renewal citing the criminal cases pending against her.

During the hearing of the plea on June 28, Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh had termed Kangana’s plea as vague and that Ranaut had not given details of the cases against her. Ranaut’s lawyer Rizwaan Siddiquee then told a bench led by Justice SS Shinde that two FIRs were registered against her, but the criminal proceedings had not started.

He then shared that one FIR was filed by Bandra Police in October last year, and was on charges of ‘promoting religious enmity.' The other FIR was filed in March this year, by the aforementioned writer for announcing a movie without the writer's permission. 

In his intervention application, Akhtar stated that in November 2020, he had filed a criminal defamation complaint against Ranuat for comments against him in a TV interview. He said that Ranaut  did not disclose this before the high court. 

'In spite of knowledge of the criminal case (Akhtar's complaint) pending before the magistrate's court, Andheri, the petitioner no 1 (Ranaut) deliberately failed to disclose the same...with an intention to mislead and obtain a favourable order,' Akhtar's application said.

The High Court did not make a decision on Akhtar’s plea. 

The regional passport authority then informed the HC that they will process her passport renewal expeditiously once she made the corrections, after which the court disposed of her interim application. Ranaut travelled to Budapest recently and expressed relief on her passport being renewed.  

(With PTI inputs)