Rajinikanth moves High Court seeking to quash summons against him

Referring to the reported loan of Rs 65 lakh given by financier Mukul Chand Bothra to his daughter’s father-in-law Kasturi Raja, the actor said the financier had claimed that Kasturi Raja had promised in a letter dated July 13, 2012, that if Raja failed to pay, Rajinikanth would pay instead. 

Based on this, Bothra moved a civil suit against him. In response, an application was moved stating that the financier had dragged his name with an intention to “extort money”. 

Bothra then filed a criminal complaint before the Magistrate Court alleging that the word ‘to extort money’ brought disrepute to him. The Magistrate had asked him to appear on June 6, Rajinikanth submitted, and sought to quash it. 

He submitted that the defamatory word “extort money” was made in the civil suit, pointing out that it was settled law that an averment made in a pleading in civil suit cannot be termed to be a defamatory statement unless the same is struck off by the civil court. 

In the present case, the civil suit is pending before the civil court and the application for rejection of plaint is pending, and the respondent has not taken any steps to strike off the word “exhort money”. Hence the complaint was not maintainable and was an abuse of the process of law, Rajinikanth said.