Modi biopic not a piece of art but made for advertising campaign for BJP: Congress tells SC

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear plea of the Congress party seeking stay on release of the 'PM Narendra Modi' biopic after the party alleged that public screening of the film during election will be violative of model code of conduct as it was made by BJP members for advertising campaign for ruling party.

A bench of Justices SA Bobde, S Abdul Nazeer and Indira Banerjee initially expressed reluctance in entertaining the PIL filed by Congress spokesperson Aman Panwar and asked him to approach high court. Senior advocate AM Singhvi, appearing for the petitioner, however, contended that it would be a futile exercise to move HC as Delhi and Bombay high courts have already refused to interfere on petitions filed by other people and pleaded the bench to examine the issue.

Singhvi said that the party had also moved before Election Commission but it did not take any action and the party is left with no option but to approach apex court. The bench, thereafter, listed the case for hearing on April 8.

The party in its petition alleged that all four producers of the film had deep and pervasive links to the BJP and three of them were not mere sympathizers or supporters, but actual card carrying official members of the Party".

"It became inescapably clear that the movie was little more than a propaganda vehicle being timed to release in coordination with the upcoming elections. The singular and blatant motive that emerged was clear. The movie was driven by little to no artistic inspiration and was instead designed to manipulate, influence and impress viewers and voters in the upcoming elections," the petition said.

Singhvi said that the release of the film will distort the level playing field in election and also told the bench that the Chairman of the Central Board of Film Certification has also worked for the film and giving clearance to the film would amount to CBFC acting as the judge in its own cause.

"This is not even surrogate advertising but a blatant advertising campaign by BJP. In fact, this is not a case of an innocuous film being released and produced as an artistic venture. This is a provable case of a political party directly using its resources in a manner to circumvent election laws on paid advertising,"the petition said.