The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Saturday converted a petition challenging the recently-released Bollywood movie Grand Masti, for alleged vulgar dialogues and obscene content, into a public interest litigation (PIL) to address the larger issue of vulgarity in cinema in general.
The decision came from a division bench comprising chief justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and justice Augustine George Masih while hearing the argument of the movie’s producer, Maruti International Films, Mumbai, challenging the single-judge stay order on the certificate issued by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) on June 14.
On the producer’s petition, the division bench had set aside the single judge’s stay on release of the film on September 12 but the case was pending in the court.
The movie starring Vivek Oberoi, Riteish Deshmukh and Aftab Shivdasani, a sequel to the 2004 hit Masti, was released on schedule on September 13.
The petitioner, advocate Dinesh Chadha, had sought directions to the Central Board of Film Certification not to certify such films which contain material that encourage incidents of crime against women in the country.