Bollywood star Preity Zinta will be examined as witness-in-chief on January 23 in a defamation case she filed against a tabloid in 2005, her lawyer said on Tuesday.

Preity was expected to appear in an additional metropolitan magistrate's court in Girgaum in south Mumbai today but the matter was adjourned to January 23, her lawyer Sandeep Kapur said.

The actress had filed the case against the Mumbai-based tabloid for publishing an article regarding an alleged taped

conversation between actors Salman Khan and Aishwarya Rai in which her name was mentioned in an objectionable manner.

The tapes of the alleged telephonic conversation were later examined in 2005 by the forensic laboratory in Chandigarh, which said the voices were not that of Salman and Aishwarya.