Chandigarh, Aug 1
The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Friday dismissed the plea of actress-turned-politician Kangana Ranaut for quashing the summoning order against her by a local court in Bathinda in a defamation case over her farm protest remark against an elderly woman farmer.
"There are specific allegations against the petitioner who is a celebrity, that false and defamatory imputations by her in the retweet have dented the respondent's reputation and lowered her in her own estimation, as also in the eyes of others. Therefore, filing of the complaint to vindicate her rights cannot be termed mala fide," Justice Tribhuvan Singh Dahiya observed.
The defamation complaint against the BJP's Member of Parliament was filed by Mahinder Kaur (73) of Bahadurgarh Jandian village in Bathinda district, alleging that Kangana had defamed her in a post on the social media platform X by identifying her wrongly as Bilkis Bano of Shaheen Bagh fame and implying that such women could be hired to protest for Rs 100.
In her retweet, Kangana had commented: "Ha ha ha, she is the same dadi who featured in Time magazine for being the most powerful Indian... And she is available for 100 rupees. Pakistani jurno's have hijacked international PR for India in an embarrassing way. We need our own people to speak for us internationally."