What Kangana Ranaut said in TV interview was a lie: Javed Akhtar

In her interview to the news channel, the actress had said that Akhtar had called her to his house and told her that Rakesh Roshan and his family were very powerful, and if she did not apologise to them, she would have nowhere to go

MUMBAI: Writer Javed Akhtar on Monday testified before a metropolitan magistrate court in Andheri that whatever actress Kangana Ranaut had said about him in her interview to a news channel in 2020 was “a lie and nothing but a lie”. He added that Ranaut was not willing to listen to him during the meeting called in 2016 to sort out differences between her and actor Hrithik Roshan.

MUMBAI, INDIA - January 13, 2020: Bollywood Actor Kangana Ranaut looked pretty in a green ensemble with flower motifs was spotted at Goregaon on January 13, 2020 in Mumbai, India (Freelance photo by Prodip Guha ) (HT PHOTO)

Akhtar was cross-examined on Monday by Ranaut’s lawyer Rizwan Siddiquee in connection with the defamation case filed by him after Ranaut made the allegations. In her interview to the news channel, the actress had said that Akhtar had called her to his house and told her that Rakesh Roshan and his family were very powerful, and if she did not apologise to them, she would have nowhere to go. “He said they would put me in jail, and eventually the only path would be that of destruction and I would commit suicide,” she said in the interview. “He shouted and yelled at me. I was shaking in his house.”

Akhtar claimed that this was false. On Monday, when Siddiquee asked him if he had not disclosed the “true facts” of the meeting, Akhtar, after correcting the lawyer’s semantic usage, said, “Whatever Kangana said in the interview is a lie and nothing but a lie.”

Siddiquee later claimed that the Ranaut sisters were “obedient” in the meeting. Akhtar denied the claim and said, “Obedience is a notion only in mind. You expect obedience from Kangana? This is not called obedience but a possibility for something...some kind of solution.” Akhtar added that Kangana was not willing to listen to him, but to say that she was upset and then left the meeting was wrong.

The writer-poet had approached the magistrate court in November 2020. On December 3, 2021, his statement was recorded by the magistrate under the process of verification of the complaint. Later, the court directed the Juhu police to probe the complaint and submit a report.

The police in their report concluded that there was a meeting between Akhtar and Ranaut in March 2016. “In the said meeting, Dr Ramesh Agrawal (family doctor of Kangana, Akhtar and the Roshans) was also present. It is said that Akhtar never told her that she would commit suicide or would have to go to jail,” states the report. The police also said that during the investigation, they issued summons to Ranaut many times to appear before them to record her statement but she did not turn up.

In their report, the police attached the statements of three witnesses: the complainant himself, Dr Ramesh Agrawal and a family friend of Akhtar. Dr Agrawal claimed that he came to know about the problems between Hrithik Roshan and Ranaut in 2015-16. During that time, Agrawal said, Akhtar had asked him to mediate and resolve the dispute between the two since he knew both well.

Agrawal, in his statement, claimed that when he asked Ranaut, she agreed to meet Akhtar at his house to discuss the issue between her and Hrithik Roshan over the alleged fake email controversy. Agrawal said that Akhtar had never said things like “You will commit suicide and you will be sent to prison”.