Producers of the film Padmaavat have finally decided to move Supreme Court against the ban imposed by certain states, including Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Gujarat, on the film's release. The lawyers will reportedly cite the example of Prakash Jha's movie Aarakshan, which faced a similar issue in 2011, according to a report in mid-day.
Mahesh Agarwal, one of the lawyers representing the case for Viacom 18, co-producer on the film, has told the leading tabloid that citing the example of the Amitabh Bachchan starrer, they will argue that "once the movie has been certified by the CBFC, the state government has no power to issue a ban."
"A similar issue has been earlier settled by the Supreme Court in the case of Aarakshan. So we'll take that as an example in our argument," Agarwal told mid-day.
Earlier in August 2011, Jha had moved the Supreme Court seeking its direction to lift the ban imposed on the release of Aarakshan in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. On hearing, the Supreme Court had then "quashed" the two-month ban imposed by the UP government on the screening of the film.
Aarakshan, which starred Bachchan, Saif Ali Khan and Deepika Padukone, was judged as 'anti-Dalit' by the National Commission for the scheduled caste.
Padmaavat received U/A certificate from the CBFC after five modifications, disclaimers and change of title from Padmavati to Padmaavat. Despite that, MP chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan decided to stick to his decision of not releasing the film in his state, a move followed by the BJP-ruled states of Gujarat, Rajasthan and even Haryana.
The pressure is immense from the Rajput fringe outfit Karni Sena, which held a massive protest demanding a countrywide ban on the film. Led by Karni Sena leader Lokendra Singh Kalvi, the protest was held at Dholpur near UP border to convince UP CM Yogi Adityanath to reconsider his decision of releasing the film in his state.
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