Mumbai: Actor Kangana Ranaut has sent a legal notice to the Entertainment Journalists’ Guild of India (EJGI) and the Press Club of India for their decision to boycott Kangana Ranaut following her spat with PTI journalist Justin Rao.
Both Justin Rao and Kanga had a spat in public during the press meet of the film JudgementallHaiKya, and subsequently, EJGI and PCI decided to boycott her.
The notice was titled, ‘Your wrongful, immoral, unethical and illegal acts of lending support to a Journalist named Mr Justin Rao, who is not only accused of indulging in unprofessional and illegal activities by intentionally violating norms of Journalistic Conduct and various other provisions of the Press Council of India Act, 1978 by openly ridiculing, insulting, annoying, criminally intimidating and defaming my client Ms. Kangana Ranaut but is also guilty and liable to be tried under various provisions of Indian Penal Code.’
The legal notice states that the Entertainment Journalists’ Guild and the Press Club have “jointly and severally have illegally formed a “cartel” and are mischievously not only seeking to openly encourage Journalist/s in ridiculing, insulting, annoying, criminally intimidating and defaming my client Ms. Kangana Ranaut, but are also using force and threats (of enforcing an illegal ban on her as an Artist in her trade as a Hindi Film Heroine) and to make my client surrender to such criminal acts, and thereby seek an apology which prima facie also amounts to “criminal extortion”.”
The notice also states that the Entertainment Journalists’ Guild does not have legal standing as a registered body and the Press Club is a meeting point for journalists. The notice gave the organisations 24 hours to “rectify all wrong so committed”, and said that Kangana will be taking action otherwise.
The notice gave the organisations 24 hours to rectify all wrong so committed failing which will prompt Kanga to taking action against the journalists bodies including seeking huge compensatory (monetary) damages.
