The Andheri Metropolitan Magistrate’s court on Tuesday issued notices to Slumdog Millionaire’s director Danny Boyle, producer Christian Colson and distributors Warner Bros Pictures.
Social activist Nicholas Almeida had on Friday lodged a defamatory complaint in court against the film that has been nominated for 10 Oscars.
Almeida’s complaint claimed that the movie was damaging to the mind of children living in slums, and that it created hatred against poor slumdwellers in the minds of the rich.
The court has directed the senior police inspector of Vile Parle police station to investigate into the complaint and submit a report by February 25, the next hearing date.
The petitioner has sought a change in the film’s name, stating that Slumdog… is defamatory and ‘completely against the society’.
“The police will first watch the movie and then submit their report by February 25,” said Almeida’s lawyer, Fazal Sheikh. “Britishers in pre-independent India always compared Indians with the dog, and now the movie is terming slum children as ‘slum dog’,” said Sheikh.