Two more petitions were filed seaparately on Wednesday to stall the release of Udta Punjab on Friday, 17 June. A Punjab-based NGO, Human Rights Awareness, moved the Supreme Court on Wednesday challenging a Bombay high court order, giving its nod for the release of the film, Udta Punjab, on Friday with a single cut. Its contention was that it depicted the state in poor light.
And a petition was filed in the Punjab and Haryana high court by advocate Wattan Sharma against the release of the film, arguing that the culture of Punjab had been portrayed badly in the film and this could disturb law and order in the state.
Udta Punjab, which tells the story of the growing menace of drug addiction among the youth of Punjab, features Shahid Kapoor, Alia Bhatt and Kareena Kapoor Khan in the lead roles.
In the apex court, senior advocate Subramonium Prasad sought from a vacation bench early listing of the PIL, which contends that the Bombay HC could not rule on what cuts could be made in a film. The counsel submitted that the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) had rightly directed the producer and director of the movie to delete all objectionable scenes; the Bombay high court should not therefore have quashed the CBFC order on June 13 and direct the Board to clear the movie within 48 hours.
While the Board had earlier wanted as many as 89 cuts, the HC had ruled that the deletion of only one urination scene would be sufficient, he said. The bench told the counsel that the matter would be heard once all the paper work had been completed. The Bombay HC had criticised the CBFC for overstepping its bounds and acting as a censoring agency.
