In a set back to Bollywood lyricist Javed Akhtar, Bombay High Court on Monday (July 26) refused to hear his intervention application which alleged that actress Kangana Ranaut deliberately failed to disclose facts in order to obtain a favourable order for her passport renewal.

While Bombay High Court couldn’t hear Kangana Ranaut’s plea in Javed Akhtar’s defamation case, the court refused to hear the lyricist’s intervention application. Advocate Vrinda Grover, appearing for Akhtar, submitted that the statement made by Ranaut that there were no criminal cases pending against her in any court was false and misleading. Ranaut “committed a fraud to get her passport,” asserted Grover. To put his point across, Akhtar had filed an intervention plea.

However the bench of Justice S S Shinde and Justice N J Jamadar refused to hear Akhtar. “If we allow your intervention then why not 100 others or 1000 others. Who is the informant? You are not the informant. The state is there. You have no right to intervene,” said Justice Shinde.

While Grover continued to argue Justice Jamadar asked her to stop and listen to the court. Justice Shinde continued, “You have no right to audience. You have no right to address the court. If we allow applications like this then courts will get flooded. We will not be able to function. There are public prosecutor, respondents in this case. If you want to say anything say through them. There are able advocates like Rizwan Merchant. You can say through them.”

Javed Akhtar’s intervention petition filed through Advocate Jay Bharadwaj submitted that the query put forth by the Court essentially required Ranaut’s lawyer, Advocate Rizwan Siddiquee, to confirm that “no criminal cases were pending against Ranaut.”

However, Akhtar claims that the response made by Ranaut’s lawyer in High Court during the hearing of the actor’s intervention application was false. Ranaut had told court that there were only two FIRs against her and did not mention another pending criminal defamation complaint which had been filed by Akhtar against Ranaut.

Javed Akhtar has filed an intervention plea, seeking to take part in the proceedings of a writ petition filed by Kangana Ranaut challenging the First Information Report (FIR) filed against her for allegedly infringing the copyright of the book ‘Didda: Warrior Queen of Kashmir’. Ranaut herself had filed an interim application in the writ petition seeking directions to the Regional Passport Authority, Mumbai, which was allegedly raising objections to issuing a passport to her as she had criminal cases pending against her.

Javed Akhtar’s lawyer Bharadwaj said that they will now be approaching the Passport Office to point this out. “Even though the passport has been issued to Kangana, we will be approaching the Passport Office to tell them that she had not disclosed the criminal case pending against her in Andheri magistrate court,” said Bharadwaj.

After seeking dismissal of all proceedings against her in the magistrate court in Javed Akhtar defamation case, Kangana Ranaut had moved Bombay High Court.