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AIB Knockout: HC refuses interim relief to Ranveer, Arjun
April 03, 2018
The Bombay high court today declined to
grant any interim relief to Bollywood actors Ranveer Singh and Arjun
Kapoor over a first information report filed against them and other film personalities for
using 'obscene' and 'abusive' language during a comedy event 'AIB
Knockout' in 2015.
A bench of Justices R M Savant and Sarang
Kotwal directed the actors' lawyer to seek the assent of the Acting
Chief Justice V K Tahilramani's court for the matter to be heard along
with two other related pleas.
One of these two pleas were filed
by comedian Rohan Joshi of AIB, a comedy collective, seeking that a
related FIR against him be quashed.
The other plea is a public interest litigation filed by a law teacher from the city.
The PIL seeks action against the organisers and participants of the
show, and also urges the HC to direct the state authorities to issue
guidelines to monitor such programmes on YouTube and similar video
networks.
The actors, meanwhile, urged the court to direct, by
way of an interim relief, the Pune and Mumbai police to refrain from
taking any coercive action against them.
The bench, however, said
it will consider the prayer once all the three pleas were tagged
together and assigned for further hearing by the Acting CJI's
court.
On December, 20, 2014, Singh and Kapoor, along with eight
other celebrities, including Karan Johar, Deepika Padukone and members
of the AIB team had performed at a charity event in Worli.
A
video of the event was subsequently uploaded on YouTube which went
viral.
In February, 2015, one Sateesh Daundkar filed a complaint
with the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate of the Girgaon court here,
claiming the show was 'vulgar, obscene and pornographic'.
The
court then ordered that an FIR be registered against all the 10
people.
Soon after, another FIR was registered against all the
ten persons in Pune following a complaint by a local alleging obscenity
during the event.
Singh and Kapoor approached the HC earlier this
year after they received summons from the Pune police, directing them
to visit the police station for questioning and recording their
statements.
They have claimed in their plea that the FIRs against
them bore an ulterior motive and were filed with 'mischievous' and
mala fide intent, and sought their quashing.
In 2015, another
bench of the HC had granted interim relief to Padukone, Johar, and the
AIB members and directed both the Mumbai and Pune police not to take any
coercive action against them until further orders.
Senior
counsel Mahesh Jethmalani, who appeared for AIB and for Kappor and
Singh, argued that the programme was full of humour and entertained the
audience.
He also urged the court to grant interim relief to
Kapoor and Singh, considering that other actors and comedians had
already been granted such a relief. -- PTI
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