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The Bombay high court (HC) on Monday dismissed a petition against the film Indu Sarkar, thus paving the way for its scheduled release on July 28.
Priya Paul who claims to be a biological daughter of Sanjay Gandhi, son of India’s former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, had filed the petition, seeking a stay on the release till portions which she said were objectionable were deleted from the film.
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Advocate Birendra Saraf, appearing for Madhur Bhandarkar, told the court that last-minute petitions like these should just be thrown out. “We have a disclaimer saying that the film is based on fiction and that all characters and incidents portrayed in the film are fictitious, and any resemblance is purely coincidental. Moreover, the censor certificate is issued after various cuts that the filmmakers were asked to do. 20 crores have been spent in the making of the film and 800 theaters have been booked, along with various rights which have been given to channels,” he said.
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The petition was filed by a Pune resident. Anwar Shaikh told the court that a law and order situation had arisen when director Madhur Bhandarkar was about to conduct a press conference for his film. Director, Madhur Bhandarkar also had also received threat messages from people. Congress party workers in the city had opposed it to such an extent that the press conference had to be stopped.
The advocate of the petitioner, Wajid Khan Bidkar said that if such an issue had come just during the film’s press conference, we can only imagine the situation when the film is released.
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Bidkar also fought a few cases for films like Parzania. It was based on the Gujarat riots but was banned by the government of Gujarat citing law and order issues.
And now, the case had been filed against Indu Sarkar Director Madhur Bhandarkar, the producer Bharat Shah and even actors Neil Nitin Mukesh and Anupam Kher under Section 133, 142, 143 and 144 of the Indian Penal Code.
However, Judge PT Shejal refused to hear the case any further after Bhandarkar’s lawyers told the court that a censor certificate had already been issued for the release of the film on July 28, this week.
Apparently, The court acknowledged that the scope of judicial review is very limited once a film is certified by CBFC which is an expert statutory body to certify films.
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