Delhi HC refuses to stop streaming of Netflix documentary ‘To kill a Tiger’
A bench of acting chief justice Manmohan and justice Tushar Rao Gedela, however, issued notice in the petition filed by Tulir Charitable Trust and fixed October 8 as the next date of hearing
New Delhi: The Delhi high court on Thursday refused to pass an order stopping the streaming of the Oscar-nominated Netflix documentary “To Kill a Tiger”, based on the gang rape of a 13-year-old girl, saying that the same has been running on the OTT platform since March 10.
A bench of acting chief justice Manmohan and justice Tushar Rao Gedela, however, issued notice in the petition filed by Tulir Charitable Trust and fixed October 8 as the next date of hearing.
“Counsel for respondent number 5 (Netflix) states that the documentary has been released on March 10. Accordingly, this court is of the view that no ad interim order is necessary at this stage,” the court said in the order.
In its petition, the Trust had also sought action against the documentary’s director Nisha Pahuja and Netflix for violating the provision of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POSCO), asserting that the film disclosed the minor’s identity.
The petition stated that the minor’s consent was not only vitiated, but it was also conditional since the director commenced shooting the documentary when the former was a minor and only obtained her consent after 3.5 years of shooting once she turned adult.
Netflix’s counsel submitted that the OTT platform at the time of filming had obtained her parents’ consent, and the victim was not a child when the documentary was published. The counsel further pointed out that the documentary was released on March 10, 2024, and the trust since then had knowledge about the same.