HC to hear afresh Salman defamation plea

The Bombay High Court will hear afresh a defamation petition filed by actor Salman Khan against his neighbour as the judge who had partly heard his plea is retiring on Friday. Justice CV Bhadang who had earlier reserved his order, on Thursday said it would not be possible to pronounce order on an appeal filed by Salman in the defamation suit due to paucity of time.
Justice Bhadang had in August begun the hearing on the appeal against a lower court order of March 2022. The lower court had refused to restrain Ketan Kakkad, who owns land near Salman’s farmhouse in Panvel, from posting derogatory videos 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. In his order Justice Bhadang said that “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. “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.”