Can No Longer Voice Opinions in India: Bombay HC on Padmavati

HC pulled up CBI & state CID over failure to make arrests in murders of Narendra Dabholkar & Govind Pansare.

In terms of the Padmavati controversy, Bombay High Court says India cuts a sorry figure with its ‘open threats’ to artists.

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A democratic country like India is cutting a very sorry figure with open threats being given to artists and others and with attacks on people for voicing their opinions, the Bombay High Court said on 8 December.

The high court, while referring to the Sanjay Leela Bhansali's controversy-hit film Padmavati, observed that the director has not been able to release his film and an actress is facing death threats.

The HC also pulled up the CBI and the state CID, which are investigating the murder cases of rationalists Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare respectively, over the failure to arrest the main suspects in these cases so far.

The strong remarks were made by a division bench of Justices SC Dharmadhikari and Bharti Dangre while hearing the petitions filed by family members of Dabholkar and Pansare seeking court supervision on their murder probe.

In this country, we have come to a situation where people cannot voice their opinions. Every time a person says he or she wants to voice their opinion, somebody or a fringe group says they would not allow it. This does not augur well for the state.

Justice Dharmadhikari as reported by PTI

He added: “In which other country do you see threats given to artists and performers? It is distressing to know that a person makes a feature film and several people work tirelessly towards it, but is not able to release the film because of continued threats. What have we come to?”

Today, somebody says I will give a reward to anyone who kills an actress. Such open threats! People are taking pride in saying we will give reward to those, who will kill an actress. And even chief ministers are saying they will not allow the release of the movie in their states.

Justice Dharmadhikari said referring to some states banning the release of <i>Padmavati</i>.

Attempts at Silencing Rational Voices like DabHolkar & Pansare

“What concerns us is India’s image and reputation as a democratic country. We are the largest democracy. We cannot take pride in the happenings of such incidents day in and day out. We are cutting a very sorry figure,” he added.

He went on to speak about how in both Dabholkar and Pansare’s cases, repeated attempts have been made by fringe groups to attack those voicing rational opinion regarding the same. He added that it was time to call upon the CBI and the CID to involve their superiors.

The court directed a meeting to be convened with secretary of state home department, Director General of Police (DGP) and Joint Director of CBI with Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh and Ashok Mundargi, who appears for CID in the matter.

The bench has now posted the matter for further hearing on 21 December.

While the CBI is probing the Dabholkar case, the Pansare murder case is being investigated by a Special Investigation Team of the CID.