Vikas Bahl defamation case hearing pushed to 21 November; Judge says Phantom co-founders made contradictory statements

Filmmaker Vikas Bahl ,  accused of sexual assault by a former employee of Phantom Films, had filed a Rs 10 crore defamation suit against former partners in the production house,  Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane. The case, which was initially set for hearing on 26 October, has now been adjourned until 21 November by the Bombay High Court, reports ANI. The case presided over by Justice Shahrukh Kathawalla was scheduled on 23 October . Kathawalla wanted to scheduled the hearing on 24 October due to the absence of an affidavit of Mantena’s clear statements, reported  DNA. He also observed that Kashyap, Motwane and Mantena’s statements, which were presented to the court on 23 October, were contradictory to each other. The publication wrote that the hearing’s date was then set to 26 October on the request of Mantena’s lawyer, Vineet Nayak, so that the producer could submit his affidavit in the case. [caption id=“attachment_5335151” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] Anurag Kashyap, Vikramaditya Motwane, Vikas Bahl and Madhu Mantena. Image from Twitter[/caption] In a recent article in HuffPost India, a former woman employee of the now dissolved production banner has reiterated the allegations and shared further details about the incident in May 2015. According to the report, the woman said she had reached out to filmmaker Anurag Kashyap, one of the partners of the production house, and detailed her experience, but no action was taken while Bahl continued to harass her until she finally quit the company. It was reported that the survivor had released a statement  through her lawyer Navroz Seervai that she did not intend to file a formal complaint against Bahl but stood by the allegations made against the filmmaker.