PIL Filed In Bombay High Court Seeking To Stall Release Of Movie "The Kashmir Files"

The PIL, filed by one Intezar Hussain Sayed from Uttar Pradesh, cites the trailer of the move to say that the movie has scenes which hurt the religious feelings of the people of India, more particularly the Muslim community and "has very potent mixture of inflammatory scenes which are bound to cause communal violence in the prevailing circumstances in the country."

The petition also argues that the dialogues, as seen in the trailer, are racial and religious remarks and are discriminatory, defamatory and against the principles of the Constitution of India. It states that the dialogues are "violative of the fundamental rights guaranteed under Article 15 of the Constitution of India being inflammatory in nature" and are against the spirit and the objective of the Constitution of India which endeavors to promote equality and rule out discrimination on grounds of race, religion, caste etc. amongst other.

"That India is a secular country and each and every individual has their Fundamental Right under Article 15 of the Constitution of India to practice and profess the religion of their choice and no one is authorized to demonstrate any religion as the destroyer of humanity," the petition contends.

The movie is set to release this Friday, March 11. The case was listed for hearing before a bench led by Chief Justice Dipankar Datta. It will be heard tomorrow as the respondents told the court that they were yet to be served with a copy of the petition.

The respondents in the PIL are Zee Studios, its Managing Director Abhishek Agarwal, Vivek Agnihotri, the Central Board of Film Certification and Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

The petition, filed through Advocate Arvind Dhanraj Aswani, contends that the trailer released on the YouTube channel of Zee Studios on February 21, 2022, shows that it is based around the killing of Kashmiri Pandits by Muslims and "it is clearly evident that the whole movie will also be portraying in a targeted one-side view of the incident which is not only hurting the religious sentiments of Muslim community but also ignite emotions and inflame the members in Hindu Community with clear possibility of triggering violence immeasurable destruction in all the active parts of India."

The petition also cites elections in various states as a "scope of misuse of any incident by any parties by escalating the disputes and differences to full scale communal violence."

"The release of the movie in public places and movie theatres provides scope for confrontation and escalation of simple differences into violent disputes and more particularly due to the prevailing circumstances in the country," the petition contends.

The petition also argues that the trailer hurts the sentiment of an entire community of the country. It cites Article 19(2) of the Constitution to say that the guarantee of Freedom of Right to Speech and Expression comes with reasonable restrictions. "A person cannot exercise his/her basic fundamental right while violating fundamental right of another. The movie is clearly a propaganda piece and is not an artistic expression of any event but a one-sided inflammatory incendiary work," the petition reads.

"It is our moral responsibility to ensure a safe and secure environment for our citizens and also ensure protection of Fundamental Rights of the Muslim Community as guaranteed under the Constitution of India. Article 15 prohibits discrimination of the grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth. Along with this, as a part of the Fundamental Duty under Article 51A(e), it is the duty of every citizen to promote the spirit of brotherhood, harmony amongst different regional diversities of the country," it adds further.