The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court has taken a strong view of the controversial dialogues and scenes in Adipurush, a film adaptation of Ramayana starring Prabhas, Kriti Sanon, and Saif Ali Khan. The court took the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) to task for approving controversial dialogues and scenes in the film and asked the board to spare religious texts such as the Ramayana, Quran, Guru Granth Sahib, and the Bhagavad Gita.
A division bench of Justices Rajesh Singh Chauhan and Sriprakash Singh accepted an amendment petition filed by Kuldeep Tewari. “The court has accepted all our objections and made serious observations on the Censor Board for releasing such a movie,” said advocate Ranjana Agnihotri, who appeared on behalf of the petitioner and listed the controversial scenes and dialogues before the court. “The court also directed the Censor Board to refrain from tampering with religious texts like Ramayan, Quran, Guru Granth Sahib, and the Gita,” the lawyer added.
“The court has also accepted our application to make Manoj Muntashir, co-writer of dialogues of Adipurush, a party in the case. The final hearing on it will be on Tuesday,” Agnihotri said.
Earlier, a division bench of Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal and Justice Brij Raj Singh had issued a notice to the CBFC on January 10 this year on the PIL filed by Kuldeep Tewari in which objections were raised on the contents of Adipurush. The court had fixed February 21, 2024, as the next date of hearing of the case. But the CBFC did not file its reply and released the movie.
Adipurush is written and directed by Om Raut and produced by T-Series and Retrophiles. The film, which was made at a reported budget of Rs 600 crore, was released worldwide on June 16 in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, and Kannada languages. Ever since, however, the film’s makers have had no respite from controversies and severe criticism from critics and audience alike.
Read Adipurush review: A wooden Prabhas in a CGI extravaganza