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The Supreme Court has also refused to entertain a plea seeking to revoke the certificate granted by Central Board of Film Certification to “Adipurush” for hurting the sentiments of Hindu community and devotees of Lords Ram and Hanuman.
In two petitions filed by Super Cassettes Industries Private Limited/ T Series, the Supreme Court today stayed proceedings before all High Court's filed against Adipurush, a mythological action film based on the Hindu epic Ramayana.
A bench of Justices SK Kaul and Sudhanshu Dhulia has further issued notice in the transfer petition moved by the makers against the various pleas.
Notably, the division bench has also stayed the impugned order and proceedings pending before the Allahabad High Court.
The instant Special Leave Petition also challenged the strong remarks made by the Allahabad High Court (Lucknow Bench) along with directions passed by it against the Union of India to constitute an expert committee to examine the depiction of the story and portray of the characters in the movie and file a report in that regard.
The makers had earlier approached the Supreme Court seeking relief against the Allahabad High Court's recent order whereby they had been directed to appear in person along with their personal affidavits explaining their bonafide in the PILs filed seeking removal of objectionable dialogues and scenes from the film.
Today, in another special leave petition under Article 32 filed by an advocate challenging the certificate granted by the CBFC, the Supreme Court noted that the tolerance for films and books has gone down and expressed that it was not inclined to adjudicate such cases as a court of appeal.
On June 28, the High Court had ordered the director of the film 'Adipurush' Om Raut, its dialogues writer Manoj Muntashir @ Manoj Shukla along with Bhushan Kumar to appear in person.
Before the next date of hearing in the matter, high court has sought a personal affidavit of the Chairman, Board of Film Certification containing all the details and the documents to convince the court that the guidelines had been followed in its letter and spirit.
Two PILs were filed before the high court alleging that film 'Adipurush' depicts religious gods and other icons and characters in a disgusting and vulgar manner hurting the sentiments of the public at large who worship those religious gods / Icons.
However, before passing any interim order or any coercive order against the opposite parties including the filmmaker or producer or dialogues writer of film Adipurush, the division bench of Justices Shree Prakash Singh and Rajesh Singh Chauhan had decided to give one more opportunity to Union of India (UOI) through its Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to revisit on the issue/ grievance of the public.
For this purpose, court had ordered the UOI to constitute a committee of experts not less than 5 in number within one week.
Court had also directed that among the members of the expert committee, two shall be the persons who are well versed with the Valmiki Ramayana and other religious texts written over Lord Ram's life so that it could be seen as to whether the depiction of the story of Lord Ram and others in the film has been done in conformity with the Valmiki Ramayana, etc. as has been claimed by the makers of Adipurush.
Senior Advocates Harish Salve and Saurabh Kirpal appeared for the makers.
Case title: SUPER CASSETTES INDUSTRIES PVT. LTD vs. KULDEEP TIWARI AND ORS
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