New Delhi: Actress-turned-politician Kangana Ranaut has approached the Supreme Court challenging a Bathinda court’s summons in a defamation case, arguing that the lower court had wrongly applied the law.

The case stems from a complaint filed by 73-year-old Mahinder Kaur of Bahadurgarh Jandian village, Bathinda, who alleged that Ranaut defamed her through a post on X. In the now-deleted post, the BJP MP wrongly identified Kaur as a Shaheen Bagh protester, Bilkis Bano, and suggested that such women could be “hired to protest for Rs 100.”

In February 2022, a Bathinda judicial magistrate issued a summons to Ranaut. She later approached the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking relief, contending that the trial court had misapplied Section 202 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). However, Justice Tribhuvan Singh Dahiya dismissed her plea, after which she moved the Supreme Court.

According to the cause list published on the apex court’s website, a Bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta will hear Ranaut’s special leave petition (SLP) on September 12.

In her original retweet, Ranaut had commented: “Ha ha ha, she is the same dadi who featured in Time magazine for being the most powerful Indian... And she is available for 100 rupees. Pakistani journalists have hijacked international PR for India in an embarrassing way. We need our own people to speak for us internationally.”

Kaur, a farmer and participant in the farmers’ agitation, said the remarks subjected her to public ridicule, mental distress, and lowered her reputation among fellow protestors. She maintained she had no connection to the Shaheen Bagh protests or Bilkis Bano, making Ranaut’s imputations “wholly false.”