Bombay High Court: The present petition was filed under Article 226 of the Constitution seeking a Writ of Mandamus against the Chairperson of Central Board of Film Certification (‘CBFC’) to revoke the certification granted to the film “Hamare Baarah” (‘the film’) and thereby injunct it from being released in public domain in any manner or form as it was in complete contravention of the provisions of the Cinematograph Act, 1952 and violates Articles 19(2) and 25 of the Constitution. The Division Bench of N.R. Borkar and Kamal Khata, JJ., restrained the respondents from exhibition, circulation, or making available for viewership the film “Hamare Baarah” on any public platform till 14-06-2024.
The petitioner had viewed the trailer of the film and found it to contain various dialogues and visuals which were derogatory to the Islamic faith and to married Muslim women in India. According to him, the film portrayed lives of married Muslim women to have no independent rights as individuals in society owing to “Aayat 223”, a verse in the Quran which in his view was entirely wrong and a misreading of the verse. He submitted that despite the modifications directed to be carried out prior to the film’s release, the trailer did not contain any disclaimer nor any reference to the certification granted by CBFC. He further claimed that a public exhibition of the film would hurt the sentiments of the Muslims and might create hatred in the society.
The respondents claimed that the objectionable scenes and dialogues were deleted, and the film had then been certified. They also stated that the trailer mentioned by the petitioner, which was released on YouTube and Book My Show, was not a certified trailer.
The Court observed that a prima facie case was made out by the petitioner but the issue of locus of the petitioner would have to be decided.
The Court ordered that the respondents were restrained from exhibiting, circulating, or making available for viewership to the public the film on any public forum/platform till 14-06-2024. The Court stated that the petitioner and the respondents were granted the liberty to mention the matter if required both during vacation or before the Regular Court.
The matter would next be placed before the Regular Court on 10-06-2024.
[Azhar Basha Tamboli Ltd. v. Ravi S Gupta, 2024 SCC OnLine Bom 1582, Order dated 05-06-2024]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the Petitioners: Advocate Mayur Khandeparkar and Advocate Aneesa Cheema i/b Rekha Musale and Nitin Rajguru
For the Respondents: AGP KN Solunke, Advocate Advait Sethna, Advocate P Roychaudhary, Advocate Madhu Godadia, Advocate Sujoy Mukherji, Advocate Deveesha Tudekar, i/b Anand & Naik
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