Supreme Court: In a special leave to appeal filed by the petitioner, the three-judges bench of D.Y. Chandrachud, CJ, J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, JJ., opined that issue which would arise in the framework of the present case was the impact of the provisions of Sections 3 and 6 of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 (‘RPWD Act’) on the statutory power to certify films. The guidelines for certification of films for public exhibition provided that the Board while exercising the power for film certification should ensure that scenes showing abuse or ridicule of physically and mentally handicapped persons were not presented needlessly. Since, the Union Government had a bearing on the proper construction of the provisions of the statute particularly when films involving differently abled persons were sought to be exhibited, the Court issued notice to the Union Government.
In the present case, petitioner filed a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution before the Delhi High Court, stating that ‘U’ certification was granted to the film ‘Aankh Micholi’ by the Central Board of Film Certification, and the film’s trailer as well as the film contained deprecatory references to persons who were differently abled. Further, during the course of hearing, the Delhi High Court was also informed that petitioner did not intend to challenge the certificate or to impede the exhibition and screening of the film. However, respondents who were the film’s producer argued that the object of the film maker was not to deprecate but to dwell on disabilities in finding a path forward for such persons to live their lives with dignity.
The Court noted that Section 5(1) of the Cinematograph Act, 1952 provided for the constitution of Advisory Panels by the Central Government to judge the effect of films on the public. Further Section 5(4) stipulated that it should be the duty of every such Advisory Panel to examine a film and to make its recommendations to the Board.
The Court opined that issue which would arise in the framework of the present case was the impact of the provisions of Sections 3 and 6 of the RPWD Act on the statutory power to certify films. The guidelines for certification of films for public exhibition provided that the Board while exercising the power for film certification should ensure that scenes showing abuse or ridicule of physically and mentally handicapped persons were not presented needlessly. Further, since the film in question was portrayed to be a comedy, petitioner also made a brief submission that there was a distinction between making a comedy of situation, which was permissible and making a comedy of a condition of disability.
Since, the Union Government had a bearing on the proper construction of the provisions of the statute particularly when films involving differently abled persons were sought to be exhibited, the Court issued notice to the Union Government. The Court requested Solicitor General of India to assist in the present matter and further clarified that the challenge in these proceedings was not either to the certification or to the exhibition of the film.
The special leave petition would next be listed on 05-04-2024.
[Nipun Malhotra v. Sony Pictures Films India (P) Ltd., 2024 SCC OnLine SC 305, Order dated 11-03-2024]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the Petitioner: Sanjoy Ghose, Senior Advocate, Jai Anant Dehadrai, Advocate, Pulkit Agarwal, AOR, Sudhanshu Kaushesh, Advocate, Siddharth Sharma, Advocate, Md Tasnimul Hassan, Advocate, Martin G George, Advocate, Vibhu Tandon, Advocate, Prashant Kumar Yadav, Advocate;
For the Respondents: Parag Tripathi, Senior Advocate, Ritin Rai, Senior Advocate, Alipak Banerjee, Advocate, Karishma Karthik, Advocate, Salvador Santosh Rebello, AOR, Kritika Grover, Advocate
Poster Source: IMDB
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