Actor Ranjitha to move court against Kanchi seer

CHENNAI: Actor Ranjitha on Friday approached a magistrate court here for filing a complaint against Kanchi mutt senior pontiff Jayendra Saraswati for allegedly making a defamatory statement against her.As per sec. 200 of the Criminal Procedure Code, whoever files a criminal defamation complaint must be present before the magistrate court and file the complaint. However, when the matter was called up before the I Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, for taking up the matter on file, she was not present at that moment. As she turned up late, she was advised to come on Monday. In her complaint, Ranjitha said that she was a strong believer of the principles of Hinduism and attended several religious conferences and discourses. Likewise, she attended the discourses of godman Nithyananda in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Thereafter, she had become his disciple. According to Ranjitha, Jayendra Saraswathi, in an interview on Wednesday, had stated that she was always with Nithyananda and castigated the ‘swami-devotee’ relationship.Ranjitha said the remark was made intentionally by the Kanchi seer to defame her in public and she had been subjected to immense agony and stress owing to the malicious statements.She sought to take cognizance of the “offence” committed by the seer under Sec. 499 (defamation) of the IPC.