Lahore: A district and sessions court ordered on Monday singer Meesha Shafi to submit her reply in a defamation suit filed by her peer Ali Zafar after she levelled harassment charges against him by September 25.
As the court proceedings commenced, Meesha’s legal counsel Muhammad Saqib Jilani submitted his power-of-attorney to the court and requested the court for an extension for submitting reply. Giving more time to the defendant, the judge adjourned the hearing till September 25.
On June 23, singer Ali Zafar had filed a defamation suit in a district court against peer Meesha Shafi, who had accused him of sexual harassment two months ago on Twitter.
The suit, claiming damages of Rs1 billion, has been filed under the Defamation Ordinance 2002. In the notice, the singer said Shafi damaged his reputation through false allegations.
“That the tweet dated 19.04.2018 and the Instep Article dated 21.04.2018 are false, slanderous, and defamatory statements, stand published and originate from the defendant, therefore, have caused tremendous injury to the Plaintiff’s reputation, goodwill, livelihood; being attempts to tarnish the good image of the plaintiff.
“As the defamatory statements are patently false, it can only be concluded that this malicious campaign has been launched against the plaintiff as part of a motivated conspiracy to tarnish the plaintiff’s good image through making false accusations.
“The defendant has associated herself with the global #MeToo movement, with one of the launchers of the #MeToo movement ‘Rose McGowan’ labelling the defendant as ‘a heroine for our times’.”
Ali, on the other hand, had “categorically” denied the allegations and threatened to take legal action against the actress.
“I intend to take this through the courts of law, and to address this professionally and seriously rather than to lodge any accusations here,” the singer had said on Twitter.
