The Supreme Court on Friday declined to entertain a public interest plea (PIL) seeking direction to the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) to revoke the certificate for public exhibition of the film ‘Adipurush’, a movie based on epic Ramayana.

Stating that the top court should not become some kind of appellant authority for such matters, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul heading a bench also comprising Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia said, “Why should we interfere under Article 32? Everybody is now touchy on everything. Should we scrutinise everything? Tolerance for films, books these days is going down.”

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Apparently displeased over the nature of the PIL before the bench, Justice Kaul said, “We may hold here that cinematographic depictions play with the original material, to what extent it is permissible, a body (CBFC) is there. It is not possible for this court to interfere for each person’s sensibilities under Article 32. These are not matters for this court to hear and sit in appeal of certification. If anyone is aggrieved by the decision of appellate authority, they can pursue remedies under law.”

Dismissing the PIL, the bench said that the top court should not become some kind of an appellant authority for such matters.

The court was hearing a PIL filed by lawyer Mamta Rani seeking direction to CBFC to revoke the certificate of the film ‘Adipurush’ – a film by Om Raut – as it hurts the sentiments of Hindus and devotees of various deities shown in the film.

Alleging that the film ‘Adipurush’ alters the basic structure of Valmiki Ramayana, the PIL petitioner had sought a direction “to protect and preserve all the religious manuscripts and texts in their original form at all platforms and prohibit distortion of the above-said texts/manuscripts by anyone.”

The petitioner had contended that ‘Adipurush’ is a mockery of Valmiki Ramayana, which has been fuelled by personal commercial gain.

“The whole story of the film has destroyed and modified every aspect of the core values of the characters, their language and each authentic event,” the petition had said.

Objecting to some of the dialogues in the film and stating that only ‘gully boys’ use such ‘derogatory’ language, the PIL petitioner advocate had said, “The sacred fundamental texts and manuscripts are the basic spiritual and physical tenets of a cultured and civilized society which a common man of such a society relies [on] and lives [by]. A man becomes an orphan like a fallen leaf from the branch of a tree without his culture and traditions.”

Expressing apprehension that such depiction would influence the general public into believing in “different value and morals”, the petition had said that, “Besides this, the depiction of the physical features and communication styles of Hindu gods – Rama and Hanuman – are complete distortions of not only the characters but also the very fundamental values for which they are worshipped”.

The film was severely criticised post release, stars Prabhas as Lord Ram, Kriti as Goddess Sita, Sunny Singh as Laxman, and Saif Ali Khan as Ravana.