Actor Konkona Sensharma has criticised the Supreme Court's decision to decline to pass an order staying the FIRs that have been registered against the actors and producers of Amazon Prime Video web series Tandav accusing them of hurting religious sentiments.
She reacted to a statement by Justice Shah who told actor Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub's lawyer Siddharth Agarwal, "You accepted the contract after reading the script. You cannot hurt religious sentiments."
"Almost all involved in the show have read the script and signed the contract! Let's arrest the whole cast and crew?" Konkana tweeted.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday, 27 January, observed that freedom of speech is not absolute during its hearing on pleas seeking a stay on FIRs against the actors and producers of Tandav. A bench, headed by Ashok Bhushan, said the petitioners should go to the high courts to seek quashing of these cases.
The Supreme Court also rejected the petitioners' request to grant interim protection to the makers of Tandav and its actors who have been named in the FIRs from arrest by police departments of six states, including Uttar Pradesh. "We cannot use the power under Section 482 CrPC. We are not inclined to grant interim protection," Live Law quoted the bench as saying.
Multiple FIRs and criminal complaints have been filed against Tandav director Ali Abbas Zafar, the show's writer Gaurav Solanki and actors Saif Ali Khan and Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra alleging that the web series has hurt religious sentiments. Among the scenes that have been singled out for allegedly being offensive is one in which Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub's character performs in a play as Shiva.
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