Bombay High Court on Monday refused to hear Bollywood lyricist Javed Akhtar’s intervention plea in Kangana Ranaut passport renewal case in which Akhtar claimed that the actress failed to disclose certain facts while seeking speedy renewal of her passport. Advocate Vrinda Grover appeared for Akhtar and submitted that the statement made by Ranaut that there were no criminal cases pending against her in any court was ‘false and misleading’. Ranaut “committed a fraud to get her passport,” Grover claimed.
However, the bench of Justice S S Shinde and Justice N J Jamadar refused to hear Akhtar’s plea. “If we allow your intervention then why not 100 others or 1000 others. Who is the informant? You are not the informant. The state is there. You have no right to intervene,” Justice S S Shinde said.
Grover was one of the lawyers who signed the mercy petition for 26/11 Mumbai Terror Attack terrorist Ajmal Kasab.
When Grover continued to argue, Justice Jamadar asked her to stop and listen to the court. Justice Shinde said, “You have no right to audience. You have no right to address the court. If we allow applications like this then courts will get flooded. We will not be able to function. There are public prosecutor, respondents in this case. If you want to say anything say through them. There are able advocates like Rizwan Merchant. You can say through them.”
Akhtar, who is busy spending his free time engaging himself in legal battles against national award winning actress Kangana Ranaut, had filed an intervening petition earlier this month. Earlier, Kangana had filed an interim application, seeking the court to direct the regional passport authority to renew her passport as she intends to travel to Hungary for a film shoot. In her petition, Kangana Ranaut had alleged that the passport authority was delaying the renewal citing the criminal cases pending against her.
However, the lawyers representing the actress had told the bench led by Justice SS Shinde that there were only two FIRs registered against the actor, but criminal proceedings in these FIRs had not started yet. Following the submissions, the Bombay HC had disposed of the petition after the passport authority gave an assurance that it would decide on her application expeditiously.
However, Akhtar later filed an intervention application challenging Kangana Ranaut’s submissions to the Bombay HC.
In his intervention application, Akhtar said he had filed a criminal defamation complaint against Ranaut in November 2020 over her remarks about him during a TV interview, and criminal proceedings against her were pending.
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.
The intervention petition by Javed Akhtar against Kangana Ranaut’s passport application came just a few weeks after the actress had accused the Maha Vikas Aghadi government of deliberately delaying her passport renewal.
The court on Monday, however, suggested that Akhtar approach the complainant in the Bandra sedition case or the public prosecutor’s office to raise his grievances.
