PM Modi biopic: Supreme Court to hear plea against its release on Tuesday

The Supreme Court of India will hear a plea challenging the release of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's biopic on Tuesday.

Senior lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi told the top court that the release of biopic on Prime Minister Modi right before elections violated the moral code of conduct, while certification award is still awaited from the CBFC. The movie was meant to release on April 5 but the date was pushed back to April 11 due to the case.

The petition has been filed by Congress spokesperson and lawyer Aman Panwar. Appearing for the petitioner, lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi argued that, "This movie is a direct assault on our basic structure. The trailer and publicity are being done by the members of BJP. You don't add to the expenses of the film. It will be shown for free for 40 days."

Add WION as a Preferred Source

The bench headed by CJI Ranjan Gogoi asked the petitioners what their objection to the film was. Singhvi requested to get a copy of the film in order to make elaborate submissions, but the CJI dismissed the demand.

Speaking about the petition, the film's lead actor Vivek Oberoi said that to be labelled, targetted, attacked is painful. "It's a passion project, something that’s taken an entire team to put this together at this scale. But then to meet this resistance, to be labelled, targetted, attacked - its painful. I didn’t think that a simple, humble movie would intimidate powerful and important people that they would go all out to get it to shut down. When the High Court supported us on this, they took it to it the honourable Supreme Court," he told WION.

Meanwhile, the Censor Board has told the top court that it has yet not issued certificate to the film.

Directed by Omung Kumar and on Narendra Modi's life, the film has been co-produced by Suresh Oberoi and Sunil Ssingh.