- By JE Entertainment Desk
- Tue, 02 May 2023 02:18 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
Sudipto Sen's 'The Kerala Story' is surrounded by several controversies ever since the movie's trailer was released on social media. 'The Kerala Story' sparked controversy after the trailer claimed that 32,000 women from Kerala were forcibly converted and allegedly recruited into ISIS. The Supreme Court has now declined the petition to halt the release of the film, citing the need to challenge certification through the appropriate forum.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday pointed out that 'The Kerala Story' has already been cleared by the censor board and the petitioners should instead challenge the film’s certification before the appropriate authority. A bench of justices KM Joseph and BV Nagarathna said that the plea to stay the release of the movie cannot be clubbed with the other instances of hate speech since the exhibition of films entails a different process.
The bench told senior counsel Kapil Sibal and advocate Nizam Pasha, "This has gone through certification. We cannot make it a part of the hate speech case. You should move the high court or any other appropriate forum but this cannot be here."
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Meanwhile, advocate Nizam Pasha said that the movie's trailer already had 16 million views. “This is the worst instance of hate speech. This is audio-visual propaganda. We do not have time for any other remedy and that’s how we are here before the highest court of the land. This movie will release on Friday,” he said.
Earlier, Chief Minister of Kerala Pinarayi Vijayan said in a Facebook post that the movie was 'deliberately produced with the aim of communal polarisation and spreading hate propaganda against Kerala'.
"By placing Kerala, the land of secularism, as the centre of religious extremism, it is repeating the Sangh Parivar’s propaganda. Propaganda films and the othering of Muslims should be viewed in the context of various efforts made by the Sangh Parivar to gain an advantage in electoral politics in Kerala," he added.
Meanwhile, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said, "Let me stress, I am not calling for a ban on the film. Freedom of expression does not cease to be valuable just because it can be misused. But Keralites have every right to say loud & clear that this is a misrepresentation of our reality."
'The Kerala Story' stars Adah Sharma, Yogita Bihani, Sonia Balani, and Siddhi Idnani. The movie will release on May 5, 2023. The movie claims to follow the story of a group of women from Kerala who are converted to Islam and join the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).