Supreme Court refuses to stop release of movie ‘The Kerala Story’

The Supreme Court on Tuesday expressed disinclination to consider an interlocutory application challenging the release of the move, 'The Kerala Story.'

A Bench of Justices K M Josh and B V Nagarathna observed that challenging the release of a film through and interlocutory application is not appropriate remedy.

The application was filed in a pending writ petition which was filed seeing action against hate speech crimes. Mentioning the application, Advocate Nizam Pasha said that the movie is the worst instance of hate speech and that it was audio-visual propaganda.

The Bench however asked why the High Court was not moved and every challenge cannot start in the Supreme Court. Later on senior advocate, Kapil Sibal joined the proceedings. He said that the the trailer has already crossed 16 million views and that the movie is slated for release in multiple languages, including Hindi, Malayalam , Tami and Telugu.

The Bench however expressed its difficulty in considering the challenge made in an interlocutory application. The courts cannot interfere once the Central Board of Film Certification has certified the movie. The courts cannot intervene unless the certification is challenged in a substantiative petition.

Sibal said, " we have challenged in the IA, but it has to be in a substantiative petition. I understand that." He also added that the current recourse was adopted because of the limited time available before the release of the film. He said that he will file a substantiative petition tomorrow and seek an urgent listing by mentioning before the Chief Justice of India. He however pleaded before the Bench to have a look at the IA in the meantime.

"You can't start everything at the Supreme Court", Justice Nagarathna said. Sibal then told the Bench that the Supreme Court had intervened in the UPSC jihad show of Sudarshan TV.

."We have an idea because we watched it on TV. We also watch TV", Justice Joseph said while questioning the method adopted by the petitioner.

If you have to get relief in a case, where you should get, I don't think this may be the forum...with the IA kind of thing, Justice Joseph said.

Sibal then said, 'yes but that's too late. Friday it is releasing. But we will do what we can.'

About The Kerala Story:

The Kerala Story is directed by Sudipto Sen and produced by Vipul Amritpal Shah. It has already attracted a lot of controversy with many political leaders seeking its ban. It speaks about how nearly 32,000 women from Kerala were converted through deceit into Islam and sold off as sex slaves to the Islamic State. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and the opposition Congress in the state have come out against the movie and said that it was aimed at peddling false propaganda to create communal hatred.