Bombay HC will hear Udta Punjab petition Thursday

Producer of Udta Punjab Anurag Kashyap addresses a press conference in solidarity for freedom of expression, at a city hotel. (Photo: Mrugesh Bandiwadekar)

The Bombay high court has posted the petition challenging the Censor Board’s review committee’s suggestions and cuts to the movie Udta Punjab, for hearing on Thursday. The film deals with the problem of drug abuse in the state of Punjab.

Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap’s production and distribution company Phantom Films had moved the high court seeking a direction to the Censor Board to provide a copy of the order passed on May 3. The petitioner claimed that the copy of the order had not been provided to the producers and that unless they had a copy of the order in hand, they could not proceed in the matter to undertake the changes purportedly suggested by the Committee. The complaint made to the court said that ideally the order copy should be made available within three days from passing of the order, but in this case the order copy was not provided till Wednesday and the movie is slated for a June 17 release.

During hearing of the petition, the division bench of Justice S.C. Dharmadhikari and Justice Dr Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi reprimanded the Censor Board for delay and as a result, a copy of its order was provided to the petitioner promptly.

However, once the order copy was provided and the matter came up for hearing again, the petitioner sought the court’s permission to carry out amendments in the petition and challenge the suggestions made in the order, including removal of the reference to “Punjab” in the movie. The bench allowed it to make amendments and posted the matter for hearing on Thursday.

The controversy over the movie took a political turn as Punjab goes to the polls next year, and the movie highlights the problem of drugs among the youth of the state. Mr Kashyap had on Tuesday hit out at the Censor Board calling the chief Pahlaj Nihalani an ‘oligarch’.