HC judge unable to pass order on Salman's plea in defamation case against neighbour
Mumbai (PTI): A judge of the Bombay High Court on Thursday said it would not be possible to pronounce order on an appeal filed by actor Salman Khan in a defamation case against his neighbour due to the paucity of time.
Khan's plea will now be heard afresh by another judge. Justice C V Bhadang, who had heard the arguments in the case and reserved his order, is retiring on Friday. Khan's appeal would now be placed before another judge after the Diwali vacation and heard afresh.
Justice Bhadang had in August begun the hearing on the appeal filed by the actor against a lower court order of March 2022. The lower court had refused to restrain Ketan Kakkad, who owns land near Khan's farmhouse at Panvel, from posting derogatory video posts against the actor.
It had also refused to direct Kakkad to delete his earlier YouTube videos. On October 11, Justice Bhadang closed the matter for orders after arguments were over.
"Unfortunately I am unable to complete the judgement. I tried my level best till last evening. But unfortunately there was vacation and then administrative work, and I had other assignments. I will have to list this as part heard," the HC judge said on Thursday.
"I understand the apprehension of the parties and that substantial time and efforts went into this. I would have loved to decide this case either way. Unfortunately this came at the fag end of my career," he added.
The Bollywood star has filed a defamation suit against Kakkad in the lower court over videos uploaded by Kakkad on social media about Khan's activities at his farmhouse in Panvel near Mumbai.
When the civil court refused to pass any interim restraining orders against Kakkad, Khan moved the HC.
The posts uploaded by Kakkad were not only defamatory but also communal and provocative in nature, his plea said.
Kakkad's lawyers Abha Singh and Aditya Singh claimed that the defamation suit was filed by the actor to pressurize their client to give up his land.
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Wayanad LS bypoll: Priyanka crosses lead achieved by Rahul in 2024 Lok Sabha polls
Wayanad (Kerala) (PTI): Top Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was on Saturday comfortably cruising towards her maiden electoral win from Wayanad in Kerala, as she surpassed the lead achieved by her brother Rahul Gandhi in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls earlier this year with party leaders and ally IUML predicting a big win for her amid the counting trends.
The Congress-led UDF's candidate from this hill constituency, Priyanka, extended her lead by over 3.8 lakh votes after five hours of counting of the ballots in the Wayanad Lok Sabha bypoll, according to the Election Commission.
Reacting to the lead achieved by Priyanka, Congress' ally Indian Union Muslim League and Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy said she would get more votes than her brother Rahul Gandhi in the Lok Sabha polls in April this year and will win by a record margin.
"An amazing first trend on counting day is the massive early lead for our leader @priyankagandhi ji in Wayanad, Kerala, by-election. People of Wayanad are surely going to record in victory margins today and Priyanka ji will make Parliamentary debut with a grand win," Reddy said in a post on 'X'.
IUML supremo Panakkad Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal said that going by the trends, Priyanka will get more votes than what Rahul got and the majority she achieves would also be higher than that of her brother.
A similar view was expressed by IUML's national general secretary P K Kunhalikutty.
On the other hand, BJP leader Anil K Antony, earlier in the day, had claimed that though Priyanka has achieved a good lead, her victory margin would be less than what Rahul got in the 2024 and 2019 LS polls in the hill constituency.
According to the latest EC figures, Priyanka had a lead of 3,82,975 with 5,78,526 votes. LDF's Sathyan Mokeri was behind her with 1,95,551 votes and NDA's Navya Haridas was in the third spot with 1,04,947 votes.
Rahul had got 6,47,445 votes and won by a margin of 3,64,422 votes against his nearest rival, CPI's Annie Raja, in the LS polls this year. In 2019, he had got 7,06,367 votes and had won by a margin of 4,31,770 votes.
After winning from Rae Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh as well, in this year's polls, Rahul vacated the Wayanad seat, and the party nominated his sister Priyanka, paving the way for her electoral debut.
The bypoll turnout in Wayanad, which has over 14 lakh registered voters, was around 65 per cent, a decline from the close to 74 per cent in the LS polls held in April this year and much lower than the over 80 per cent turnout in the hill constituency in the 2019 general elections.
The counting of votes commenced at 8 am with postal ballots being taken up first.
The strong rooms, where the EVMs were kept, were opened more than an hour before counting began.
The bypoll for the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat was held on November 13.
Of the 16 candidates who contested, the main contenders are Priyanka, ruling CPI(M)-led LDF's Sathyan Mokeri, a political veteran, and BJP-headed NDA's Navya Haridas.
