The Bollywood superstar, Salman Khan, on Friday told the Bombay High Court that the videos shared about him via social media by his Panvel farmhouse neighbour Ketan Kakkad were defamatory in nature, yet in addition communally provocative. A single bench of Justice C V Bhadang was hearing an appeal registered by Salman Khan challenging a civil court order of March 2022 refusing to grant him relief in a defamation suit he had registered against Kakkad. The suit was registered against Kakkad relating to videos uploaded by him via social media about alleged activities of the superstar at his farmhouse in Panvel. Khan had sought for the court to direct Kakkad to delete the defamatory videos and furthermore to stop making further such remarks. At the point when the civil court refused to pass such an order, the superstar moved toward the high court.
On Friday, Salman Khan’s counsel Ravi Kadam contended that the civil court had erred in its order refusing injunction. He said to the court, “The videos uploaded by Kakkad are blithely speculative. They were not only defamatory, but also communally provoked the viewers against Salman Khan. Kakkad had spoken about how Khan, who is a member of a minority community, was trying to usurp a Ganesha temple in Panvel near his farmhouse. In the video, the defendant compares Salman Khan to Babar and Aurangazeb. He says it had taken 500 years for the Ayodhya Mandir to come up and here Salman Khan is trying to shut down a Ganesha temple. These videos are watched by lakhs of viewers who then post their comments against Salman Khan. This is clearly provoking the viewers against Salman. The videos have communalised everything and made it Hindus vs Muslims. Kakkad also made several comments alleging that Khan was a member of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim’s gang. Kakkad has alleged that Salman is running business of drug trafficking, organ trafficking and child trafficking from his farmhouse.”
After hearing the brief arguments in the case, the bench posted the matter for further hearing on August 22. Kakkad through his advocates Abha Singh and Aditya Singh had claimed in the lower court that the superstar had registered a defamation suit to pressurize him to give up his land. In the interim, Salman Khan is preparing for his next films Bhaijaan and Tiger 3.
