VIJAYAWADA: Ramgopal Verma’s Lakshmi’s NTR ran into legal hurdles ahead of its release as a division bench of the High Court of Andhra Pradesh, comprising Justice AV Sesha Sai and Justice U Durga Prasad Rao on Thursday stayed its screening until April 3, either in cinemas or on social media platforms.
A HC bench will watch the movie in the court hall on April 3 before pronouncing its decision.
Meanwhile, the Senior Civil Court judge, Mangalagiri, issued a temporary injunction restraining the film-makers from releasing the movie till April 15. The controversial film was originally scheduled to be released on Friday in the State.
Petitioners P Mohan Rao and SS Rao objected to the release of the film ahead of the elections and made the Central Board of Film Certification as the respondent.
Special government pleader Ramesh said, “The petitioners filed a PIL in the HC and the court stayed the release of the film. At 4 pm on April 3, a special screening of Lakshmi’s NTR will be arranged in the HC hall for judges, after which a decision on its release will be announced by the court. As of now, the release of the film is stopped.”
A TDP functionary filed a petition in the court contending that TDP founder late NT Rama Rao and his family members were portrayed in a bad light and the characters, their voices and mannerism in the film closely resembled those of N Chandrababu Naidu and other important leaders of the party.
The petitioner also contended that the claims of the defendants (film director and producer) through the trailers exhibited on social media platforms and other mediums, that the film is based on NTR’s biography are not correct and they do not reflect the facts about the personal life of the former CM of Andhra Pradesh as well as the leaders of the TDP including Naidu.
After hearing the petitioner’s arguments that the movie was made with a malicious intent to portray Naidu in a bad light and to erase the positive imprint of the TDP in the minds of the people and also to confuse, demoralise and disturb the millions of the TDP members so as to make a dent in the electoral prospects of the party in the forthcoming elections, the Court granted temporary injunction order restraining the release of the film till April 15.
While Y Shiva Santosh represented the petitioners, advocates Avinash Desai and P Sudhakar Reddy were the counsels for the respondent.