The Madras High Court on Thursday dismissed a writ petition filed against Rajinikanth-starrer Kaala after observing that an affidavit filed along with the petition was bereft of particulars to substantiate the litigant’s claim that the movie was based on the life of Dhiraviya Nadar alias Kuduvala Sait and that it projected the latter in the wrong light.
Filed at eleventh hour
Justice T. Raja said the petitioner, J. Muthuramesh alias Rameshkumar, 40, of Porur had filed the case at the eleventh hour though the censor certificate to the film was issued a while ago.
The order was passed after hearing the views of Jawahar, son of Dhiraviya Nadar, who was present in the court and claimed that the movie appeared to be based on his father’s life.
In his affidavit, the petitioner had accused the film’s director Pa. Ranjith of having written a script based on the life of Dhiraviya Nadar alias Kuduvala Sait, a Tamil who was instrumental in setting up one of Asia’s biggest slums at Dharavi in Mumbai and projecting him as a person biased against certain caste groups.
However, senior counsel P.R. Raman, representing Mr. Rajinikanth, producer Dhanush of Wunderbar Films and the film’s director, contended that the present writ petition was nothing but publicity interest litigation. He said the film was purely a work of fiction and it was not based upon any person, living or dead.
“The petitioner has assumed that the movie is based upon Dhiraviya Nadar’s life. This is all just a creation so that he could file a case at the last minute and get some publicity. This kind of practice should be discouraged at the threshold. Courts should not waste time on such cases when many pressing matters are in the pipeline,” he argued.