Bhopali said he was yet to receive the notice, “but once I get it I will appear in court and talk only mohabbat ki baate”. Bhopali said he was yet to receive the notice, “but once I get it I will appear in court and talk only mohabbat ki baate”.

An Urdu poet has been issued a summon in connection with a criminal defamation suit filed against him by another poet.

Secretary of Madhya Pradesh Urdu Academy Dr Nusrat Mehdi slapped the suit against poet Manzar Bhopali for allegedly accusing her of “saffronising’’ the government body and saying that “like other government officers and employees, she too has started wearing saffron undergarments”. A first class judicial magistrate’s court on January 11 issued summons to Bhopali.

Bhopali made the alleged comment at a function in the old city in March 2016. Mehdi claimed that Bhopali not only defamed her, but also violated her dignity by referring to the colour of her undergarments in public.

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“I moved the court because the police refused to file an FIR against him for his objectionable words. He is no longer a respondent, he is an accused now,’’ Mehdi told The Indian Express. She said she had submitted a CD to the court that proved the poet did make that comment.

Bhopali said he was yet to receive the notice, “but once I get it I will appear in court and talk only mohabbat ki baate”. He claimed he never made the comment and that Mehdi had no proof.

He claimed that Mehdi’s allegation followed his complaints to the CM’s House and Raj Bhavan that she had illegally occupied the secretary’s post for many years. He claimed that a “strong lobby” was backing her and that she believed he was in the race for the post of chairman of the Urdu academy.

Countering the poet, Mehdi said a government official, responding to her RTI application, had conveyed to her that no such complaint from Bhopali had been received.

Bhopali, however, claimed he had copies of the complaint. He alleged that favouritism was rampant in the academy, with undeserving poets winning awards. He added that he was never after the chairman’s post “that is now inferior to my standing in the literary word”.

The court initiated criminal defamation proceedings against Bhopali after hearing witnesses produced by Mehdi. Mehdi had asked Bhopali to tender a public apology for his comment and moved the court after he did not do so. In his 50s, Bhopali usually focuses on peace in his poetry. When Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan launched the first event under his Happiness Ministry in Bhopal on January 14, he publicly lauded the poet.

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