Mumbai: Nearly 38 film bodies and production houses including those which are led by Karan Johar, Yash Raj, Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan have filed a suit against a news channel and four journalists for defaming the Hindi film industry. Petitions have been filed before Delhi High Court against Arnab Goswami and Pradeep Bhandari of Republic TV and Times Now popular faces Rahul Shivshankar and Navika Kumar.
Bollywood has been in the spotlight over a drugs probe linked to the investigations into the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput on June 14. Amid revelations of drug chats on phones, stars and their parties have been subjected to media trials and defamation.
Petition against Republic TV, Times Now
The lawsuit asks the channels (Republic TV and TimesNow) and social media platforms to “refrain from making or publishing irresponsible, derogatory and defamatory remarks against Bollywood and its members”.
As per reports, it also asks that they be restrained from conducting media trials of film personalities and interfering with the right to privacy of people in the industry.
It also said that the defendants abide by the provisions of the Programme Code under the Cable Television Networks Rules, 1994, and to withdraw, recall and take down all defamatory content published by them against Bollywood.
The news channels are accused of using derogatory words such as “dirt”, “filth”, “scum”, “druggies” and expressions such as “all the perfumes of Arabia cannot take away the stench and the stink of this filth and scum of the underbelly of Bollywood”.
Petitioners in the case
Film bodies who have filed the petition against Republic TV and Times Now include, the Producers Guild of India, the Cine and TV Artiste Association, Ad-Labs Films, Aamir Khan Productions, Ajay Devgn Ffilms, Anil Kapoor Film and Communication Network, Arbaaz Khan Productions, BSK Network and Entertainment, Cape Of Good Films, Clean Slate Filmz, Dharma Productions, Ashutosh Gowarikaer Productions, Excel Entertainment, Filmkraft Productions, Hope Production, Kabir Khan Films, Nadiadwala Grandson Entertainment, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra Pictures, Red Chillies Entertainment, Reliance Big Entertainment, Rohit Shetty Pictures, Roy Kapur Productions, Vinod Chopra Films and Vishal Bhardwaj Films, among others.
Boycott Bollywood
Soon after the news of producers filing suit against news channels and journalist came in, #BoycottBollywood started trending on Twitter. Netizens felt that Bollywood is trying to supress the voice of justice. On user wrote, “Everytime Bollywood tried to supress voice of JUSTICE Everytime NATION comes with new creative ways of BOYCOTTING BOLLYWOOD”.