Chandigarh, Aug. 2 -- The Punjab and Haryana high court on Friday dismissed a plea of BJP MP from Mandi Kangana Ranaut seeking quashing of a defamation complaint against her and the summoning order by a court in Bathinda in 2022. The actor-turned-politician had challenged the defamation case which stemmed from her retweet consisting of her own comment about the complainant during the 2020-21 farmer protests against the now-repealed farm laws, against which farmer organisations remained camped at Delhi borders for months. The Centre repealed the three laws on December 1, 2021. The complaint was filed by Mahinder Kaur, 73, of Bahadurgarh Jandian village in Bathinda district in 2021. She had alleged that Kangana defamed her in the tweet by identifying her wrongly as Bilkis Bano of Shaheen Bagh. Kangana shared the tweet alleging that the 'Shaheen Bagh dadi' also joined the farmers' agitation at various border points of the national capital. In her tweet, she had allegedly compared Mohinder Kaur with Bilkis Bano, the elderly woman protester at Delhi's demonstration site against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, and had indicated that such protesters could be hired. "There are specific allegations against the petitioner (Kangana), who is a celebrity, that false and defamatory imputations by her in the retweet have dented the respondent's reputation and lowered her in her own estimation, as also in the eyes of others. Therefore, filing of the complaint to vindicate her rights cannot be termed malafide," justice Tribhuvan Dahiya said in the order while dismissing Kangana's plea on Friday. "A reading of the impugned order (summoning order) as a whole, makes it apparent that the magistrate (Bathinda court) has duly applied mind to the material on record, and only after recording satisfaction that commission of offence under Sections 499 IPC is prima facie made out against the petitioner, the process has been issued," the order reads. Kangana had filed the petition in July 2022 seeking quashing of the complaint filed under Section 499/500 of the Indian Penal Code (defamation) and also the summoning order dated February 22, 2022, by the lower court. Acting on the plea, the high court, in its order on July 11, 2022, had asked the trial court to adjourn proceedings pending HC decision. The actor had claimed none of the accusations mentioned prima facie establish a case of defamation, and the same was based on "false and baseless allegations". The complaint has been filed with an ulterior motive and is the outcome of a political vendetta, Kangana had claimed. The court rejected the actor's argument that the retweet was in 'good faith'. It also added that because the complainant had filed a complaint only against Kangana and not against the person to whom the original tweet had been attributed, in itself, cannot be a ground to contend that the complaint is malafide. "There is nothing on record, nor could any material be shown by learned counsel for the petitioner which prima facie indicates such an intention on the respondent's (complainant) part in filing the complaint in question," it further recorded....