SC dismisses plea against 'controversial' scenes in Padmaavat

The Supreme Court today rejected a plea filed by an advocate, the third by him, seeking deletion of some alleged controversial scenes from movie 'Padmaavat', saying the film has been cleared by the censor board.
The top court stalled the third attempt by the lawyer, who had earlier filed two petitions seeking to prevent the release of movie starring Deepika Padukone, Ranveer Singh and Shahid Kapoor, which too were dismissed.
A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud said the film has 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 last year 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 said "the film has now been cleared by the CBFC with the suggested changes. We cannot prevent it from screening after this".

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."

Sharma said the movie cannot use those scenes when the court had directed for expunction of paragraphs from his petition.
"(What) we meant by expunction was that those paragraphs should not be used by petitioners," the bench said and dismissed the latest petition.
The top court had earlier dismissed the plea of Sharma on November 20 last year saying it cannot pre-judge a movie which was then before the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) for grant of certification.
The film has been mired in controversies after several petitions were filed in the apex court seeking to stall its scheduled all India release on January 25.

Initially, the apex court had trashed several petitions filed by Sharma and others seeking a stay on its release on various grounds.
Then the producers moved the court after certain states banned the movie based on the saga of a historic 13th century battle between Maharaja Ratan Singh and his army of Mewar and Sultan Alauddin Khilji of Delhi.
The court, on January 18, had set aside the ban and restrained other states from banning the movie produced by Viacom 18, paving way for its all-India release on January 25.