Bombay HC tells Preity to ‘finish off’ case lodged in 2014

Mumbai: The Bombay high court on Monday asked the actor Preity Zinta and industrialist Ness Wadia to appear before the court next week and also suggested them to “finish off” a 2014 case lodged against Wadia by the actress for allegedly outraging her modesty.

The division bench of Justice Ranjit More and Justice Bharti Dangre told the lawyers that the bench would hear the matter in the chamber on next date. The court was hearing the petition filed by Wadia seeking to quash the FIR filed against him by Ms Zinta. Mr Wadia in his petition has claimed that the case arose out of “personal vengeance” and that the incident was merely a “misunderstanding”.

During hearing, actor’s lawyer told the court that the she was willing to settle the matter if he was ready to apologise. The lawyer also informed the court that Ms Zinta was not insisting on a written apology.

On the other hand Mr Wadia’s lawyer Abad Ponda told the court that his client was not ready to apologise. “We want to bury the hatchet, but my client is not ready to apologise,” said Ponda adding, “The complainant (Zinta) wants to extract an apology and get media attention.”

Following this Justice More suggested them to “finish it off”. The judge asked both the parties to remain present before the court on October 9.

In her complaint of June 12, Ms Zinta had accused Mr Wad-ia of molesting, abusing and threatening her during an IPL encounter between Kings XI Punjab and Chennai Super Kings on May 30. According to the complaint, he was all-egedly abusing the team staff because there was no seat available for his family in front row despite asking for the same.