It’s a big development in connection with the release of Padmavaat. The Allahabad High Court on Tuesday issued a contempt notice to censor board chairman Prasoon Joshi. The Lucknow bench of the court granted three weeks’ time to Joshi for filing his response to the contempt notice. It fixed next hearing of the matter in the week commencing February 12. A bench of Justice Mahendra Dayal passed the order on the petition filed by Kamta Prasad Singhal, who had submitted that he had earlier filed a Public Interest Litigation seeking ban on the release of the movie because it promoted Sati, which is an offence. After hearing the PIL, the court had on November 9, 2017 dismissed the petition but, simultaneously, it had permitted the petitioner to move his grievance through a representation to the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC).
Accordingly, he moved the representation before the chairman of the board on November 13, 2017 but Joshi is yet to decide on it and three weeks time given to him by the high court has expired. At this, the high court issued contempt notice to Joshi.
Earlier in the day, The Manohar Lal Khattar government in Haryana has banned the release of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s controversial film “Padmaavat”, Health Minister Anil Vij said today. Vij said a decision to this effect was taken at a meeting of the state Cabinet keeping in view the sentiments of a large number of people who felt that historical facts had been “distorted” in the period drama.
The minister said that in the previous Cabinet meeting too he had demanded a ban on the film.