Supreme Court stays all cases against Priya Varrier

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday stayed criminal proceedings pending in Maharashtra and Telangana against Kerala actress Priya Prakash Varrier on grounds that the video of a song from her film Oru Adaar Love allegedly hurt religious sentiments of the Muslim community.

A Bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A.M. Kanwilkar and D.Y. Chandrachud, after hearing counsel Harris Beeran, also stayed similar criminal proceedings against the director N.P. Abdul Wahab and producer Joseph Valakuzhy Eapen.

Besides staying existing criminal proceedings, the bench restrained other states from filing or taking action against the three petitioners on the basis of the promotional video of the song in the move. The bench issued notice to those who filed the criminal complaints and posted the matter for further hearing after six weeks. 

Varrier, a B.Com student from a college in Kerala’s Thrissur district, sought protection from an FIR lodged on complaints alleging that the lyrics of the song Manikya Malarayi Poovi from the movie was “offensive” and had “violated the religious sentiment of a particular community”.

On February 9, the producers of the movie, Oru Addar Love, released a promotional video of a song Manikya Malaraya Poovi on Youtube. 

The song has been misunderstood by people outside Kerala (non-Malayalam speakers), as it is being wrongly translated/interpreted and taken out of context, which is leading to the registration of multiple criminal cases against the petitioners in Maharashtra and Telangana.