Allahabad:
The Allahabad High Court sought a response from the Centre on a PIL demanding an immediate ban on Bollywood item numbers 'Munni Badnam Hui' and 'Sheila ki Jawani' on the grounds that they were against decency and morality.
While passing the order, the Lucknow bench of the court comprising justices Pradeepkant and Rituraj Awasthi directed the central government counsel to seek response from the Centre and fixed January 10 as the next date of hearing.
On December 23, a woman had filed a PIL in court seeking an immediate ban on the two songs, alleging that they were against decency and morality.
The petitioner had requested the court to order a halt on the release of Hindi film 'Tees Maar Khan' till the song 'Sheila Ki Jawaani' is not removed from the film.
In her PIL, the petitioner Nutan Thakur through her counsel Ashok Pandey had sought an order to immediately stop the public exhibition of these two songs, claiming they have a "bad" impact on society.
Producers of 'Tees Maar Khan' Twinkle Khanna, Shirish Kunder and Ronnie Screwvala, its director Farah Khan, producers of 'Dabangg' Arbaaz Khan, Malaika Arora Khan and Dhillin Mehta, its director Abhinav Kashyap, Censor Board and Union of India through the Secretary of Information and
Broadcasting have been made respondents in the PIL. The petitioner had alleged that in the movie 'Dabangg' and 'Tees Maar Khan', as in almost all other films in other languages, many indecent, immoral and vulgar songs, dialogues and visual representations, were being disseminated to the general public through the means of channels of mass media before the issue of certificate under the law of the land.
"This is completely against sections of the Cinematography Act 1952 because in many cases such songs, dances, scenes, dialogues do not get certificate later on but by that time they have been publicly exhibited to a very large extent," she had said.
The petitioner requested the court to direct the Censor Board and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to intervene and issue directives to the film-makers in all the languages and all other concerned bodies not to display anything (including songs, dances, dialogues, audio inputs, sequences, promos or other such materials of the film) before the required certificate is issued to the films.
"Such unfortunate events have already started taking place where helpless and poor girls studying in schools and colleges, working women in all kinds of establishments, institutions and organisations and even housewives are being teased, molested and sarcastically treated, more so when the name of the women/girls is Sheila/ Sheela/ Munni/ Muniya or other similar sounding ones," she had said.
The petitioner also sought a court directive to stop the screening and public exhibition of 'Dabangg' as long as the song 'Munni Badnaam Hui' is not deleted from the film.