The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Friday dismissed a petition filed by BJP Member of Parliament and actor Kangana Ranaut seeking to quash a defamation complaint filed against her in connection with a tweet posted during the 2020–21 farmers’ protests.
The defamation case was initiated by 73-year-old Mahinder Kaur, a resident of Bahadurgarh Jandian village in Punjab’s Bathinda district, who alleged that Ranaut defamed her on social media by mistakenly identifying her as Bilkis Bano — popularly known as the “Shaheen Bagh dadi” — and implying that she was a hired protester.
The controversy stems from a retweet by Ranaut in which she commented on an elderly woman seen participating in the farmers’ agitation, claiming she was the same woman who protested at Shaheen Bagh for money. The tweet drew widespread criticism and led to legal action by Kaur, who asserted that the misidentification and accompanying remarks tarnished her reputation.
While hearing the plea under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, Justice Tribhuvan Dahiya observed that the complaint could not be dismissed as malicious or frivolous, given the gravity of the allegations and the public stature of the petitioner.
“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,” the court said in its order.
The high court further noted that the Bathinda magistrate had carefully examined the material presented before issuing the summoning order on February 22, 2022, and had rightly concluded that a prima facie case under Section 499 of the Indian Penal Code was made out.
Ranaut’s plea had sought to annul both the complaint and the summoning order. With the high court’s dismissal, she will now have to appear before the trial court in Bathinda to face defamation proceedings under Sections 499 and 500 of the IPC.
