BENGALURU: In a partial relief to Latha Rajinikanth, wife of Tamil actor Rajinikanth, the Karnataka High Court recently quashed charges of cheating and giving false evidence against her in a case filed by a Chennai company.Justice M Nagaprasanna, who was hearing the case, however refused to interfere with charges of forgery against her. He granted liberty to a lower court magistrate to continue with the proceedings in the case.
Latha was challenging an order passed by the magistrate, who had issued summons to her on March 27, 2021 after taking cognisance of a private complaint filed by Ad Bureau Advertising Pvt Ltd in 2015 in Bengaluru.
The company had accused Latha of forging a document from a non-existent media house and producing it before a city civil court to get an injunction order to restrain the company from publishing and broadcasting the financial dispute over the Tamil movie, ‘Kochadian’.
In March 2016, Latha approached the high court, challenging the acceptance of the private complaint by the lower court. The high court quashed the entire proceedings and held it to be a pure civil dispute. The court allowed both sides to seek damages or action under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act.
This was questioned by the complainant before the Supreme Court, which set aside the high court order, holding that it was a case that can go to trial. The proceedings again continued before the magistrate, who issued summons to Latha after the police filed a chargesheet in February 2021.
Case history
Financial transactions between the complainant and Mediaone Global Entertainment Limited led to disputes in connection with the Tamil cinema ‘Kochadian’. The dispute led to wide publicity with the media wanting to publish the details, on the grounds that Latha had executed a guarantee on behalf of Mediaone, but failed to honour it as the film bombed.
The media started publishing and broadcasting allegations against Latha. She argued that the media coverage defamed her and her family. She approached the city civil court, which passed the injunction order in December 2014.Finally, the court returned the complaint for want of territorial jurisdiction and dissolved the injunction order in February 2015. She challenged it before the high court which was dismissed in February 2016 for default.