Respond to plea for panel to probe casting couch in Tollywood: HC to TS

HYDERABAD:A division bench of Telangana High Court has directed the State government to respond to the petitioners’ demand for setting up a high level committee to enquire into issues of women’s vulnerability to sexual exploitation (casting couch) in the Telugu film industry and to initiate steps for safety, dignity and welfare of women artistes. Further, the bench directed the State to come up with a consolidated stand on the issue of unorganised women artistes in the industry.

The bench comprising Chief Justice TBN Radhakrishnan and Justice A Rajasheker Reddy was passing this order recently in a PIL filed last year by V Sandhya Rani and six other women activists of the city complaining about inaction of the Telangana government in constituting a high-level committee to deal with the numerous complaints of sexual exploitation of women artistes working in Telugu film industry.  

Petitioners’ counsel Vasudha Nagaraj urged the court to issue directions to the government for conducting proper inquiry into the issue. She stressed the need of setting up of a high-level panel consisting of officials from the departments of women, home and labour, women’s rights activists, eminent lawyers and the representatives of women artists from film industry to carry out a systematic inquiry into the conditions of work place of women artists and to recommend measures to ensure safety and dignity of such artistes and having grievance redressal mechanism in the industry.

At present, there were no committees to inquire into the incidents of atrocities against the women even in other places apart from the film industry. In fact, the Telangana Film Development Corporation had sought the permission of the government to constitute a high level committee in Sept last, she noted.

When the bench sought reply from the government, special counsel of Telangana A Sanjeev Kumar sought some time saying that the women and child welfare department would file counter affidavit on the issue. After hearing both sides, the bench directed the government to respond to the petitioners’ demand on the issue by next date of hearing, and posted the matter to Feb 12 for further hearing.