On 12 October, a civil suit was filed before the Delhi High Court by four Bollywood industry associations and 34 Bollywood producers against Republic TV, Arnab Goswami and Pradeep Bhandari (of Republic TV), Times Now, Rahul Shivshankar and Navika Kumar (of Times Now) and unknown defendants as well as social media platforms to refrain from making or publishing irresponsible, derogatory and defamatory remarks against Bollywood.
Among the studios that have filed the petition are Shah Rukh Khan's Red Chillies Entertainment, Salman Khan Films, Aamir Khan Productions, Ajay Devgn Films, Karan Johar's Dharma Productions, Anushka Sharma’s Clean Slate Filmz, Zoya Akhtar’s Tiger Baby and Farhan Akhtar's Excel Entertainment.
Here's what the petition states:
As an example of the unsubstantiated and incorrect news being relayed by these channels, the suit mentions how even though the Sushant Singh Rajput death case was transferred to the CBI, the channels indulged in putting out news reports suggesting that arrests would be made though nothing like that happened. The film producers who have come together against Times Now and Republic have also said that these channels have made a mockery out of the criminal justice system.
Here's a complete list of the plaintiffs that have filed the suit.
- The Producers Guild of India
- The Cine & TV Artiste Association
- The Film and TV Producers Council
- Screenwriters Association
- Aamir Khan Productions
- Ad-Labs Films
- Ajay Devgn Fflims
- Andolan Films
- Anil Kapoor Film and Communication Network
- Arbaaz Khan Productions
- Ashutosh Gowarikaer Productions
- BSK Network and Entertainment
- Cape of Good Films
- Clean Slate Filmz
- Dharma Productions
- Emmay Entertainment & Motion Pictures
- Excel Entertainment
- Filmkraft Productions
- Hope Production
- Kabir Khan Films
- Luv Films
- Macguffin Pictures
- Nadiadwala Grandson Entertainment
- One India Stories
- R.S. Entertainment
- Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra Pictures
- Red Chillies Entertainment
- Reliance Big Entertainment
- Reel Life Productions
- Rohit Shetty Pictures
- Roy Kapur Productions
- Salman Khan Ventures
- Sohail Khan Productions
- Sikhya Entertianment
- Tiger Baby Digital
- Vinod Chopra Films
- Vishal Bhardwaj Film
- YashRaj Films
President of Screenwriters Association Robin Bhatt told The Quint, "The step was initiated by some people from the industry and was conveyed to all of us. We have come together because some news channels were putting Bollywood in a spot where they were calling them drug addicts, bad people. Their yardstick is not correct. Everyone was hurt. So we all decided that we cannot take it anymore and we moved court".
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