Actor Nana Patekar’s NGO, Naam Foundation filed a defamation suit of Rs 25 crore against actor Tanushree Dutta, after she made remarks about the NGO in a press conference in January 2020. The Bombay High Court has restrained her from making allegations against Naam Foundation. Since she was absent from court and not represented by an advocate in time, Justice AK Menon granted relief to the NGO. Nana Patekar and Makarand Anaspure instituted the NGO in September 2015, with the aim of helping farmers in drought-ridden areas.
Tanushree Dutta has now reacted to the suit in an interview to Mumbai Mirror.
“The suit is a clear indication of how far Nana Patekar can go to trouble and silence me whenever I point out corruption.”Tanushree Dutta.
The petition filed by the organisation said that the allegations made by Tanushree “caused enormous damage to the foundation’s reputation.”
Justice Menon did not refute that the NGO is involved in charity work and the allegation leveled against it “appears defamatory”. The court ruled that there is no record to conclude the NGO is a “fly-by night operator.”
As published in Mumbai Mirror, the court order reads: “That pending the hearing and final disposal of the present suit, this Hon’ble court be pleased to restrain the defendant (Tanushree Dutta) from further publishing or using in any way the said defamatory press conference or its contents to the plaintiff’s reputation with respect to siphoning of funds, bribery, subverting police and judicial system, collecting funds on false pretext, improper maintaining of the plaintiff’s (Naam Foundation’s) accounts.”
Tanushree, who is now filing a reply, maintains that she will seek an inquiry through Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
“My challenges in life made me an activist and I have decide to never back down,” she told the publication. She added that history will remember her for the fight she put up.
In an interview to The Quint in 2019, Tanushree had spoken about the Naam Foundation. “These people (Nana) have crores of rupees and black money that they’ve collected unfairly in the name of farmers through Naam Foundation, which is at their disposal to squash any case under the sun. For them giving Rs 1 crore to any authority is not a big deal,” she said in the interview.
It was Tanushree, who, two years ago, brought the #MeToo movement to Bollywood. She revealed that Nana Patekar touched her inappropriately on the sets of Horn OK Please in 2008. Director Rakesh Sarang, producer Sami Siddiqui and choreographer Ganesh Acharya were named complicit by her in the said incident.
Back then, the police had closed her complaint against the mentioned members of the film crew on account of being false. A petition against this closure is pending in the Bombay High Court.
(Inputs from: Mumbai Mirror)
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