Bollywood actress Nora Fatehi has accused fellow artiste Jacqueline Fernandez of making statements to ‘destroy her career’ in a defamation case filed with a New Delhi court, according to the Indian media.
Fatehi and Fernandez have both been questioned in a money laundering case filed against alleged conman Sukesh Chandrashekhar.
Fatehi’s plea alleged that Fernandez ‘made defamatory imputations’ due to ‘malicious reasons’ with an intent to ‘destroy her career to further her own interests’, reports bdnews24.com on Monday citing The Indian Express.
Fatehi’s plea stated that Fernandez had made a written statement to the appellate tribunal that she was “falsely” implicated by the Enforcement Directorate while “celebrities such as Fatehi who had received gifts from Chandrashekar had been made witnesses”.
This, Fatehi claimed, was an attempt to defame her and destroy her career.
“Jacqueline Fernandes sought to criminally defame the complainant in order to destroy her career to further her own interests, since they are both working in the same industry and have similar backgrounds, amongst other reasons,” her plea read.
Her plea stated that Fernandez’s statements were made to malign her image when Fatehi has nothing to do with the matter.
“It is pertinent to mention herein that both the complainant (Nora Fatehi) and the accused (Jacqueline Fernandez) are actresses of foreign origin and both have had their share of struggles in rising to fame in the Indian film industry, hence, it is evident that the act of the accused in dragging the name of the complainant wherein she has no business mentioning the complainant is mala fide in nature,” the plea stated.
While Fatehi is of Canadian-Moroccan origin, Fernandez is from Sri Lanka. Fatehi’s plea has also sought to make several media houses respondents in this case, claiming they criminally sought to reproduce the defamatory statements made by Fernandez.
Sukesh has been accused of allegedly extorting Rs 2 billion from the wife of former Fortis Healthcare promoter Shivinder Singh. In its supplementary chargesheet filed in the case on August 17, the Enforcement Directorate claimed that Fernandez had received gifts worth Rs 57.1 million from Chandrashekhar, which were from the proceeds of crime, but is “trying to justify herself that she was in fact the victim of manipulative actions by Sukesh against her”.
