Kerala HC refuses to stay release of 'The Kerala Story'

The Kerala High Court on Friday refused to stay the release of the controversial multilingual film The Kerala Story and said the trailer does not contain anything offensive to any particular community as a wholeA bench of Justices N Nagaresh and Sophy Thomas noted the submission made by the producers that they do not intend to retain an offending teaser which contained a statement that 32000 women from Kerala were converted and joined a terrorist organisationJustice Nagaresh who dictated the order said that going through the trailers of the movie we find that the trailer does not contain anything offensive to any particular community as a wholeThe court said the Central Board of Film Certification CBFC has examined the movie and found that it is suitable for public exhibitionAlso Read Apex court refuses to direct Kerala HC to take up urgently plea against CBFC certification to film The Kerala StoryThe Kerala High Court also noted that the producers have published a disclaimer along with the movie which specifically says that the film has fictionalised and is a dramatised version of events and that the film doesnt claim accuracy or factuality of historic eventsIn view of the disclaimer also we are not inclined to pass an interim order restraining the respondents from exhibiting the film as such In view of the above and taking into consideration the statement made by the producer that the producer does not intend to retain the offending teaser in their social media handles no further orders are necessary in this petition at this stage the court saidThe High Court was hearing a batch of petitions which sought to set aside the certificate for public display given to the movie by the Censor board among other pleas including to ban itThe petitions contended that the movie falsely portrayed certain facts which had resulted in insulting the people of Kerala and sought a stay on the movies impending releaseThe Kerala Story starring Adah Sharma was released in cinemas on Friday and is portrayed as unearthing the events behind approximately 32000 women allegedly going missing from KeralaAccording to the CPIM and the Congress in Kerala the film falsely claims that 32000 women got converted and radicalised and were deployed in terror missions in India and the worldThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever