Delhi High Court: The present application was moved by Petitioner 1, Akshat Baldwa praying for providing accessibility features in theaters as well as on the OTT platform in the feature films i.e., ‘Jawan’ and ‘Hi Papa’. Prathiba M. Singh, J., opined that since it was easier to replace a particular copy of the film on OTT, uploading a fresh copy of the film ‘Jawan’ with accessibility features on OTT platforms should be considered.
Petitioners submitted that the film ‘Jawan’ was already released theatrically as well as on OTT platforms and insofar as the film ‘Hi Papa’ was concerned, the OTT release was to take place in March 2024. It was submitted that the accessibility features were not being followed on OTT platforms, therefore, a direction should be issued that on OTT platforms, features should be made available for persons with disabilities.
This Court had, vide order dated 16-01-2023, considered a similar request on petitioners’ behalf for the film ‘Pathan’. In respect of the said film, on OTT, various features including audio description, subtitling and closed captions were included when the OTT release took place. The film ‘Pathan’ was thereafter released on OTT with the accessibility features and the Court was informed that the cost of the same was not very high. The Court noted that this application was already served upon the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (‘Ministry’). The Court thus stated that the Ministry should call the producers of the films ‘Jawan’ and ‘Hi Papa’ for consultation and impress upon them the importance of providing these features at least in the OTT release for these two films.
The Court opined that since it was easier to replace a particular copy of the film on OTT, uploading a fresh copy of the film ‘Jawan’ with accessibility features on OTT platforms should be considered.
The matter would next be listed on 31-01-2024.
[Akshat Baldwa v. Yash Raj Films, 2023 SCC OnLine Del 8226, Order dated 22-12-2023]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the Petitioners: Rahul Bajaj, Pritthish Roy, Advocates
For the Respondents: Ravi Prakash, CGSC; Abhishek Malhotra, Srishti Gupta, Anukriti Trivedi, Farman Ali, Astu Khandelwal, Usha Jamnal, Devvrat Joshi, Angad S Makkar, Nitin Sharma, Kuber Mahajan, Deepika Pokhria, Advocates
