Nothing Against Muslim Community In Movie "Hamare Barah": Bombay High Court

Underlining that the Indian public was "not gullible or silly", the Bombay High Court on Tuesday said it watched actor Annu Kapoor-starrer "Hamare Baarah" movie and found nothing objectionable in it that was against the Quran or the Muslim community.

The court observed that the film is in fact aimed at upliftment of women.

"The movie is in fact for the upliftment of women. The movie has a Maulana misinterpreting the Quran and in fact one Muslim man objects to the same in the scene. So this shows that people should apply their mind and not blindly follow such Maulanas," the high court said.

"We don't think there is anything in the movie that would incite any violence. If we felt so we would be the first ones to object to it. Indian public is not so gullible or that silly," the court said.

A bunch of petitions were filed in the High Court earlier this month seeking a ban on the movie claiming that it was derogatory towards the Muslim community and had distorted what the Quran says.

While initially the high court postponed the release of the movie, it later permitted the release after the makers said the objectionable portions would be deleted as directed by the Central Board for Film Certification (CBFC).

A division bench of Justices B P Colabawalla and Firdosh Pooniwalla said the film's first trailer was objectionable, but that has been removed and all such objectionable scenes have been deleted from the movie.

The bench, however, said it would be imposing a cost on the makers of the movie for releasing the trailer of the film even before receiving certification from the censor board.

"Violation was there vis-a-vis the trailer. So you will have to pay something towards a charity of the petitioner's choice. Cost will have to be paid. This litigation has got the film so much unpaid publicity," the court said.

The court cautioned the makers of the film to also be careful and not include dialogues and scenes under the garb of creative freedom to hurt the sentiments of any religion.

"The makers should also be careful what they put out. They cannot hurt the sentiments of any religion. They (Muslim) are the second largest religion of this country," the court said.

The petitioners claimed that the movie promotes domestic violence, to which the bench said domestic violence cannot be said to be limited to only one community.