A Mumbai civil court on Thursday, 25 October, heard an injunction filed by actor Alok Nath’s lawyer against writer-producer Vinta Nanda, who accused the former of raping her earlier this month. At the opening arguments in the defamation case filed by Ashu Nath (Alok Nath’s wife) against Nanda, Nath’s lawyer invoked the actor’s ‘sanskari’ nickname to highlight his character.
He (Alok Nath) holds a good reputation and hence he has been given the nickname ‘sanskari’. Sanskari by itself is given by the virtue of good character.Alok Nath’s lawyer (representing Ashu Nath)
The injunction was filed to stop Nanda from posting anything on social media against the actor. Arguing that the reputation of Nath and his family has been affected by the allegations, the lawyer questioned Nanda’s decision call out the actor on social media instead of taking a legal course of action.
“If I have grievances, there is legal recourse. If it is a criminal offence, there are provisions. If the police fail to take any action, you can approach higher authorities,” he said. Nath’s lawyer argued that there cannot be a media trial.
“One cannot expect they will get justice on the basis of Facebook. You can’t come to the media and start defaming a person,” he said.
Dhruti Kapadia, who was representing Vinta Nanda, rebutted the allegations and said the writer-producer was exercising her freedom of speech and there is no time or age limit to speak the truth. She also pointed out that Nath’s name was not at all mentioned in the entire post.
Nowhere has she named him, people in the industry knew who it was because they knew about him. She’s not the only woman, at least three other women are talking about the same man. If I just wanted to defame him, I would have just apologised but I want truth to come out. This complaint needs to be investigated thoroughly.Dhruti Kapadia, Vinta’s lawyer
While addressing the “timing” of the allegations, Nanda’s lawyer said that at the time of the incident there were no Vishakha guidelines that could have helped her gain the confidence she needed to take a legal recourse.
Then Nath’s lawyer read out the post which had horrific details of the abuse that she allegedly suffered the night she was allegedly raped and questioned the authenticity of the claims made by Nanda.
“This is how she certifies her character. A person is unconscious, over drunk and does not know when she reached her home, who took her there and she just realised that she has experienced pain and she doesn’t say where the pain is. After drinking you get a hangover and that too causes pain and affects your body,” the Nath’s lawyer said.
Slamming the argument made by Nath’s lawyer, Kapadia said any woman who was raped would definitely know what had happened to her.
“Just because she was drunk, that does not make her characterless, even he was drunk,” Kapadia said. She then referred to the statement made by Alok Nath and asked, “He says, ‘I have made her life’, he made her life by raping her?”
Nath’s lawyer again tried to discredit Nanda’s claims and said that she is a writer and this is just a “story” and it could either be false or just based on true facts. To this, Kapadia said that whatever has been said by Nanda were facts.
The sessions court said that it will pronounce its judgment on the injunction on Friday, 26 October.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)