Punjab and Haryana HC dismisses Kangana's plea seeking quashing of defamation complaint

The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Friday dismissed a plea by BJP MP Kangana Ranaut seeking to quash a defamation complaint against her and a summoning order by a Bathinda court.

The actor-politician had challenged the defamation case, which stemmed from a retweet of her own comment about the complainant during the 2020-21 farmer protests against the now repealed farm laws.

The complaint was filed by Mahinder Kaur (73) of Bahadurgarh Jandian village in Punjab's Bathinda district in 2021. She had alleged that Ranaut defamed her in the tweet by wrongly identifying her as Bilkis Bano of Shaheen Bagh fame.

Ranaut shared the tweet alleging that the 'Shaheen Bagh dadi' also joined the farmers' agitation at various border points of the national capital.

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"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 Dahiya mentioned in the order while dismissing Ranaut's plea.

"... A reading of the impugned order as a whole, makes it apparent that the Magistrate (Bathinda court) has duly applied mind to the material on record, and only after recording satisfaction that commission of offence under Sections 499 IPC is prima facie made out against the petitioner, the process has been issued..," the order reads.

The petition was filed before the high court under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure seeking a quashing of the complaint filed under Section 499/500 Indian Penal Code and also the summoning order dated 22 February 2022 by the lower court.