HC: Court can’t interfere if no challenge to film’s CBFC cert

Mumbai: Though the court may form a view on a film’s depiction of any area in a particular way or if the film seeks to denigrate a particular community, it would be impermissible for the court to interfere in the absence of any challenge to the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) clearance, the Bombay high court has said.The HC had on Wednesday dismissed two PILs filed by Kamathipura MLA Amin Patel and local resident Shraddha Surve against Sanjay

Leela Bhansali

’s ‘Gangubai

Kathiawadi

’ alleging that based on the film’s trailer, it appears to hurt sentiments of Kamathipura residents. The PIL had sought deletion of words ‘Kamathipura’ and ‘Kathiawadi’ and a disclaimer.“Once the film is granted [CBFC] certificate, the producer or distributor has every right to exhibit the film in a hall unless, of course, the said certificate is modified/nullified by a superior authority/court,” the bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice M S Karnik said in their order.“Public exhibition can only be restrained by the Centre” if it is approached under the rules or upon a challenge being mounted to the certificate before the HC and obtaining a stay on the certificate. The HC said the objections by the producers to the maintainability of the PILs was well-founded.‘Gangubai Kathiawadi’ is based on the chapter “The Matriarch of Kamathipura” from the book “Mafia Queens of Mumbai” by S Hussain Zaidi and Jane Borges. The book says, “Gangubai chose to call herself Kathewali, a last remaining association with her family name, Kathiawadi.” The HC said, “If the film is based on the book...and Gangubai discarded the surname Kathiawadi and used Kathewali, it may have been advisable if the film title was sans Kathiawadi.” It, however, added that in the absence of any challenge to the certification, it was not for the court to pass any direction. “The apprehension expressed by the PILs merely on viewing the trailer is based on wrong notion and thus ill-conceived,” it said.The HC had also disposed of a petition filed by Hiten

Mehta

objecting to use of the word ‘China’ in a scene where a dentist, portrayed by an actor from the north-east, urges the main character to open her mouth, and she replies: ‘Pure ka pure China mue me ghusayga kya? (Are you going to insert the whole of China in my mouth?)” Mehta’s lawyer Ashok Saraogi had sought deletion of the scene, claiming it was ‘racist’. His grievance was the use of the word “China” as it could “affect the interest of the people of the north-eastern region”. But senior course

Ravi Kadam

, for the producers, said the film was set in the 1950s when Chinese dentists practised in Kamathipura. The HC accepted Kadam’s submission, but pointed out that “it’s highly improbable that the main character, who hails from a rural background, could have referred to the neighbouring nation as China, instead of Cheen” as that is how people called it in Hindi in the 50s.
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