DELHI HIGH COURT ALLOWS RELEASE OF THE FILM “BATLA HOUSE” SUBJECT TO DELETION OF CERTAIN SCENES.
The Delhi High Court vide order dated August 13, 2019 permitted the release of the John Abraham starrer movie Batla House, directed by Nikhil Advani, subject to a strong disclaimer and certain modifications in the film.
The movie faced opposition from Ariz Khan and Shehzad Khan, who are accused in the Batla House encounter case. They objected release of the movie, by way of a petition in Delhi High Court, stating that the movie is likely to prejudice their trial as it is shown to be inspired from true events. They sought postponement of release of the movie until the pending cases involving the accused are resolved.
According to reports, the Advocate on behalf of the filmmaker defended the claim by stating that the movie did not pose direct or immediate threat to a fair trial in the ongoing cases of the accused. It was also submitted that the movie attempted to show the narrative of Delhi Police as well as the accused.
After the detailed arguments presented by both the parties and after the accused were given an opportunity to watch the movie, the Court directed the filmmaker, to carry out deletion of few scenes and certain other modifications which address the concern of fair trial of the accused, after which the movie could be released. The modifications directed were:
- At the beginning of the film, a disclaimer shall be carried clarifying that the film is inspired by Delhi Police and other documents/details of events available in the public domain. It is further to be clarified that the movie is not a documentary but a work of fiction. The disclaimer shall also clarify that the film respects the process of fair trial and does not intend to interfere in the administration of justice by discrediting anyone.
- The scene depicting the confession of one of the characters in the film shall be deleted.
- The bomb-making scene shall be completely deleted.
- The word “mujahideen” shall be muted in the scene pertaining to the confession of one of the characters.
- A disclaimer shall be inserted to clarify that the filmmakers do not endorse the views of either of the sides i.e. the Delhi Police and the accused in the film.
- The last scene showing the actual photo of the Delhi Police Officer who spearheaded the Batla House operation shall also be deleted.
After complying with the said order, the movie ‘Batla House’ was released on its scheduled date of 15th August, 2019.
ACTORS IN COMMERCIAL ADVERTISEMENTS CANNOT BE SHOWN IN MILITARY FATIGUES WITHOUT APPROVAL BY THE DEFENCE MINISTRY.
Advertising Standard Council of India is a self-regulated non-governmental body established to protect the interests of the consumers and all concerned with Advertising-Advertisers, Media, Advertising Agencies and others who help in the creation or placement of advertisements.
The Advertising Standard Council of India (ASCI) in a recent tweet mentioned that in a new advisory, the Additional Directorate General of Public Information has stated that advertisements portraying actors in military fatigues will need a prior approval from the Defence Ministry before release of such an advertisement in public domain.
As per reports, such an advisory came after some consumers complained regarding an ad released by a pan masala brand which depicted actors in camouflaged uniform of the army personnel while chewing the brand.
DELHI HIGH COURT DIRECTS INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS TO BLOCK ACCESS TO WEBSITES SUCH AS TAMILROCKERS AND SIMILAR WEBSITES.
Warner Bros has filed a plea in the Delhi High Court alleging that the websites such as Tamilrockers, eztv, katmovies and limetorrents are hosting, streaming and making available to the public its original content, as well as that of others like UTV, Star, Paramount, Universal and Netflix, without any authorisation.
The Court was satisfied that a prima facie case is made out by Warner Bros company and in absence of an interim order, irreparable injury would be caused to the company and hence has passed an interim order.
In the interim order, the Court directed the Internet Service Providers (ISP) to block access to all the Uniform resource locators (URLs) and IP addresses of the aforementioned websites. Uniform Resource Locators are address of a resource on the Internet.
The Court directed the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the Ministry of Information Technology to suspend the domain name registration of the websites infringing the copyright of production houses and to issue requisite notifications asking Internet and telecom service providers to block such online sites.
The Court also restrained the websites from streaming, distributing or making available to the public any cinematograph work/content/programme/ show in relation to which Warner Bros has copyright.
The next hearing date of the matter is 27th September, 2019.
RELIANCE JIO’S FIRST DAY FIRST SHOW PLANS WORRIES MULTIPLEXES
Jio’s soon to be launched high-speed broadband and home entertainment offering – Jio Fibre – will eventually launch a package that will allow its subscribers to watch movies releasing in theatres at home on the very first day.
As per reports, the announcement saw investors begin a sell-off in multiplex stocks. Multiplexes such as PVR and INOX have responded to the announcement as a highly disruptive development, with Inox noting that “ producers, distributors and multiplex owners in India have mutually agreed to an exclusive theatrical window of 8 weeks, between the theatrical release of a movie, and release on any other platform”. PVR, for its part, added that both “in India and globally, producers have respected the release windows and kept a sacrosanct gap between the theatrical release date & the date of release on all other platforms, i.e. DVD, DTH, TV, OTT etc”.
Reliance has said that Jio Fiber broadband plans will be priced upwards of Rs 700 per month with speeds between 100Mbps and 1Gbps.
