Supreme Court dismisses plea filed by Manohar Lal Sharma seeking deletion of some alleged controversial scenes from ‘Padmaavat’

    The Supreme Court today i.e. January 29, 2018 dismissed the petition filed by Manohar Lal Sharma seeking deletion of some alleged controversial scenes from the film ‘Padmaavat’.

    The Apex Court stalled the third attempt by the lawyer, who had earlier filed two petitions seeking to prevent the release of movie.

    A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud dismissed the plea by noting that the film has already been cleared by Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC).

    Lawyer M L Sharma, in his fresh plea, referred to the apex court order of November 20, 2017 on one of his previous plea, ordering expunction of certain details about the movie from his petition on the ground that these may create “disharmony”.

    He said when the apex court had ordered expunction of the paragraphs from his petition which dealt with the scenes of the movie, then those scenes cannot be shown in the movie and need to be deleted.

    The bench clarified that the deletion of paragraphs referred to the deletion from the pleading and does not affect the movie which has been cleared by the CBFC.

    Sharma said the court had only examined the statutory power of states to ban the film but not the procedure adopted by the censor board.

    The top court said it had examined the relevant laws and “a point has come for you (Sharma) to leave this cause.”

    The top court had earlier dismissed the plea of Manohar Lal Sharma on November 20, 2017 saying it cannot pre-judge a movie which was then before the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) for grant of certification.