The Commercial Head of Amazon Prime Aparna Purohit was charged with inappropriate portrayal of UP police personnel, adverse portrayal of Hindu deities and character portraying Prime Minister, few days back.

Talking about the same case, HC refused the bail of Amazon Prime’s Commercial Head. The application was rejected by Justice Siddharth, and upon rejecting he  said-

“though the applicant was earlier granted interim protection from arrest by another bench in a similar case, she was not cooperating with the investigation.”

The petitioner argued that the web series is a work of fiction. The applicant had no intention of hurting the religious sentiments of any community. 

The state government’s counsel argued that a total of ten FIRs and four criminal complaints related to disputed web series have been filed across the country. It shows that not only one person is affected by the conduct of the applicant, but many people across the country have felt that the web series is offensive and hence they have filed FIR / complaint.

“It is not a stray case of some over-sensitive individual lodging the FIR against the applicant and other co-accused persons regarding objectionable character and content of the web series in dispute,”

– added the counsel.

The court, after listening to the parties concerned, said,

“The basic philosophy of the Constitution is to permit the people of all faith to practice, profess and propagate their religion freely without hurting or acting against the people who profess or practice different religious faith than theirs. Therefore, it is an onerous duty of every citizen to respect the feelings of the people of other faith even while making a fiction”.

Referring to certain scenes of the web-series, the court observed and said-

“the scenes in dispute are likely to cause disturbance and threats to public order. The reference to Hindu Gods and Goddesses in the scenes in dispute in berating light cannot be justified.”

Later, the court added-

“Western filmmakers have refrained from ridiculing Lord Jesus or the Prophet but Hindi filmmakers have done this repeatedly and still doing this most unabashedly with the Hindu Gods and Goddesses.”

Taking the names of Hindu deities, and disrespectfully showing them in movies, the court observed and said-

“This tendency on the part of the Hindi film industry is growing and if not curbed in time, it may have disastrous consequences for the Indian social, religious and communal order.”

The court also stated-

“There appears to be a design behind such acts on the part of the people who just give a disclaimer in all the films and depict things in the movies which are really religiously, socially and communally offensive in nature.” 

“The young generation of the country, which is not much aware of the social and cultural heritage of this country, gradually starts believing what is shown in the movies by the people like the accused persons in the present movie in dispute and thereby, it destroys the basic concept of the survival of this country having tremendous diversity of all kinds as a united nation. The film industry in the south has not indulged in such acts like the Hindi film industry.”-

– the High Court said.

The court took judicial notice of the fact that whenever such crimes are committed by some citizens of the country, said

“The forces inimical to the interest of this country become active and they make it an issue and raise it before different national and international forums alleging that Indian citizens have become intolerant and ‘India’ has become an unsafe place to live.”

On 19 January, an FIR was registered on the complaint of Balbir Azad of Runija village under Rabupura police station of Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh. In the complaint, Azad alleged that the series showed Uttar Pradesh and its police in a bad light. The complaint further alleged that the series intentionally maligned Hindu deities.

The FIR further alleged that the web series in question depicted the Prime Minister of India as going against democratic norms and deliberate comments were used to disturb caste and communalism. The complainant alleged that the producers of the series wanted to disturb peace and tranquility for the purpose of making money.