Mumbai: Bollywood veteran Javed Akhtar remained present before the Andheri magistrate court on Thursday in the complaint he had submitted against actor Kangana Ranaut alleging she had made defamatory statements against him to a news channel. Akhtar’s statement was recorded by the court. The plea is scheduled to be heard on December 19.

The video of the actor allegedly making the disparaging remarks in the aftermath of actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death had gone viral.

Akhtar’s plea said he was shocked when he learnt Ranaut had on July 19 given an interview to TV anchor, Arnab Goswami, of Republic TV and Republic Bharat, damaging his “immaculate reputation by falsely attributing statements to him”.

“During the interview, the accused (Ranaut) proceeded to give her opinion(s) on the circumstances around the death of Sushant Singh Rajput without appearing to have any direct personal knowledge of the circumstances,” the plea said. It said in the same interview she referred to Akhtar as being part of an alleged “suicide gang”. The plea said these false and malicious statements had damaged his reputation and maligned his dignity.

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A city advocate filed a plea before Bombay High Court against actor Kangana Ranaut and sought to “permanently suspend or deactivate” her Twitter account as Ranaut used social media to allegedly spread hatred and disharmony in the country through tweets. The petition, which makes Twitter Inc a party, said it did not take action on his October 24 request to suspend her account. Ali Kaashif Khan sought orders to the social media giant to scrupulously follow its guidelines.