Chandigarh: Actor Kangana Ranaut, the BJP candidate from the Mandi parliamentary constituency of Himachal Pradesh, has eight criminal cases pending against her. A defamation case by lyricist Javed Akhtar in Mumbai, another by Punjab-based woman farm activist Mahinder Kaur in Bathinda, and two more by actor Aditya Pancholi and his wife Zarina Wahab in Mumbai are among them.
While charges have been framed against Ranaut in Andheri’s 10th metropolitan magistrate court for alleging Akhtar threatened her with consequences for her words against actor Hrithik Roshan, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has been hearing Ranaut’s petition for quashing an FIR lodged over her alleged social media post comparing Mahinder Kaur with the “Dadi” at Shaheen Bagh. The cases by Pancholi and Wahab have been stayed.
Many of the alleged X posts based on which complaints have been filed against Ranaut can no longer be found on the microblogging site (then Twitter).
Moreover, an FIR under sedition charges was registered against Ranaut on the Bandra magistrate court’s order in October 2020. Another FIR for a post allegedly linking farmer protests with those by separatist groups was registered at Mumbai’s Khar police station in November 2021.
The Himachal Pradesh BJP has posted the details of these cases, along with the signatures of state BJP chief Rajeev Bindal, on its X handle, @BJP4Himachal, in compliance with the guidelines of the Election Commission of India.
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Javed Akhtar & Ashish Kaul’s suits
According to details on the eCourt portal, Akhtar got a case registered against Ranaut before the metropolitan magistrate in November 2020, claiming the actor dragged his name into her reference to an existing “coterie” in Bollywood. She allegedly did so in a TV interview after the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput.
While talking about the Bollywood “coterie”, Ranaut said, “Once Javed Akhtar had called me to his house and told me that Rakesh Roshan and his family are very big people.”
She added: “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, and you will commit suicide. He shouted and yelled at me. I was shaking in his house.”
In the interview, Ranaut was talking about her fallout with Hrithik Roshan over her claims that they had an affair, which Roshan persistently denied, leading to a series of allegations and legal battles between the actors.
In February 2021, R.R. Khan, metropolitan magistrate, 10th court, Andheri, passed his order in Akhtar’s case, seeking the issuance of the process for criminal defamation against Kangana Ranaut under IPC sections 499 and 500. Ranaut moved the Mumbai sessions court against the order. However, her plea was dismissed in April 2021.
In another order in March 2022, the court of metropolitan magistrate R.R. Khan rejected Ranaut’s application for permanent exemption from appearing before it. But at the same time, the court assured her of considering her exemption application in a specific situation and relevant stage in the case.
On the last hearing date in the case, 16 March 2024, the court noted that both parties were absent while their advocates were present. It granted an exemption application filed on behalf of Ranaut for that day and adjourned the case for 20 April 2024.
According to information shared by the Himachal Pradesh BJP, the case filed by Javed Akhtar is in progress, and Ranaut has filed a counter-complaint.
Ashish Kaul, the author of Didda: The Warrior Queen of Kashmir, Didda: Kashmir Ki Yoddha Rani in its Hindi version, accused Ranaut of copyright infringement after she announced her film, Manikarnika Returns: The Legend of Didda, in 2021.
Kaul claimed he had exclusive copyright over the life story of Didda, the princess of Lohar (Poonch) and queen of Kashmir.
On 12 March 2021, a Mumbai court had ordered the registration of an FIR against Ranaut based on Kaul’s complaint.
According to the information uploaded by the Himachal Pradesh BJP, the FIR is under challenge before the Bombay High Court.
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Cases by Kaur, Pancholi, and his wife
In January 2021, Mahinder Kaur filed her complaint in the Bathinda court, seeking criminal proceedings against Kangana Ranaut for defamation under IPC sections 499 and 500.
Kaur alleged in an X post that Kangana compared her, then participating in the farmers’ protests on the Delhi-Haryana borders, with the “Dadi” at Shaheen Bagh. Kangana allegedly wrote in her post that such protesters were for hire.
The court summoned Ranaut in the case. The actor, however, approached the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking to quash the FIR, which the Himachal Pradesh BJP mentioned in its X post.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court website shows that in the last interim order in the case on 25 September 2023, Ranaut’s counsel requested an adjournment. The case was adjourned to 17 January 2023. The website does not mention any interim order from that day and lists the case for 16 May 2024.
Actor Aditya Pancholi and his actor wife Zarina Wahab filed separate criminal defamation complaints against Kangana Ranaut in an Andheri court in October 2017. The complaints came after Kangana alleged in a TV interview that she was in an abusive relationship with Pancholi when she was new in the film industry.
The Himachal BJP X post stated that the sessions court at Dindoshi, Mumbai, stayed both cases after Ranaut approached the court in 2019.
Three FIRs against Ranaut
On 9 October 2020, a judicial court in Karnataka ordered an FIR against Ranaut for an X (then Twitter) post on 21 September that year after advocate Ramesh Naik filed a complaint, alleging her post had a clear intention to injure the people opposing the farm laws, “wantonly giving provocation, with intent to cause riots”.
The Himachal Pradesh BJP post said the case is under challenge before the Karnataka High Court.
On 17 October 2020, a court in Mumbai’s Bandra ordered an FIR against Ranaut and her sister, Rangoli Chandel, for allegedly spreading communal hatred. The order came after one Sahil Ahsrafali Sayyed filed a complaint, alleging the sisters, through their comments on social media, tried to create divisions between the Hindu and Muslim communities, spreading communal hatred.
The complainant said Ranaut had continuously defamed the Bollywood film industry for the last couple of months as a hub of nepotism and favouritism through tweets on her official Twitter, as well as TV interviews, creating divisions between the Hindu and Muslim artists.
The Himachal Pradesh BJP post said the FIR is under challenge before the Bombay High Court. According to the Bombay HC website, the case filed on 23 November 2020 is still at the “pre-admission” stage.
On 23 November 2021, an FIR was lodged against Ranaut at the Khar police station in Mumbai, accusing her of “intentionally and deliberately” portraying the “kisan morcha” as a “Khalistani movement” and calling the Sikh community “Khalistani terrorists”.
Mumbai-based businessman Amarjeet Singh Sandhu (47), along with leaders of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), filed the police complaint on the basis of which the FIR was registered.
“Khalistani terrorists may be arm-twisting the government today… But, let’s not forget one woman… The only woman prime minister ‘ne inn ko apni jooti ke neeche crush kiya tha (crushed them under her shoes)’,” the complaint read.
At the time, Manjinder Singh Sirsa, a DSGMC former president and now a BJP leader, had posted a video on his Facebook, giving details of the case and demanding the withdrawal of security and Padma Shri granted to her.
The Himachal Pradesh BJP said the case is under challenge before the Bombay High Court.
According to the case information available on the website of the Bombay High Court, the case has not come up for hearing since it was last heard on 25 January 2022.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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