Actress Tanushree Dutta says she has been slapped with two legal notices — from veteran actor Nana Patekar and filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri — over her allegations of harassment against the two, and fears that the strategy is to keep her mired in court cases that will drain her will to fight on.
Dutta had recently alleged that Patekar harassed her when the two were shooting a song for Horn Ok Pleassss 10 years ago. She also accused Agnihotri of behaving inappropriately with her during the making of the 2005 film Chocolate.
“I have been slapped with two legal notices today. One from Nana Patekar and another from Vivek Agnihotri. This is the price you pay for speaking out against harassment, humiliation and injustice in India. Both Nana’s and Vivek Agnihotri’s teams are on a smear campaign against me by constructing outright lies and misinformation on social media platforms and other public platforms,” Dutta said in a statement issued by her PR team, Shimmer Entertainment.
Nana Patekar, Vivek Agnihotri Agencies
“I’m being threatened to be dragged into the court and the legal system of India which we all know can keep a woman and her supporters as well as the media silent on the pretext of the matter being sub judice but can also further be used to harass her and drain her financially. ‘Tareekh pe tareekh pe tareekh’ and the dawn of justice never arrives and her whole life goes waste awaiting justice while witnesses are intimidated, discredited or simply drained of their will to stand up... Court cases can run for decades without a hope for a conclusion. At the end an empty shell remains, broken hopes,” Tanushree said.
Nana, 67, had laughed off the allegations when they surfaced against him last week and said he would explore if he could take any legal step.
Filmmaker Agnihotri too has denied the allegations, saying the claims “have been borne with an intent to attract publicity and wreak personal vendetta”. Agnihotri’s lawyer Nidhish Mehrotra said the team has sued Tanushree on the charge of defamation.
Former president of Cine and TV Artists Association Gajendra Chauhan, who was on the scrutiny committee in 2008, recalled that Tanushree had filed two complaints with the body. “One was about payment of her staff and the other was of criminal nature. I advised that Tanushree should go to the police,” he said.
