The Kerala Story movie ban: Calcutta High Court defers hearing in PILs citing plea before Supreme Court

The Calcutta High Court Wednesday deferred the hearing in the public interest litigation (PIL) petition regarding the ban on the controversial film, The Kerala Story in West Bengal. .A division bench of Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharyya said the Supreme Court is already seized of a similar petition and hence the High Court will wait for the apex court's decision. "The Supreme Court is already hearing a matter in this regard. Let it be heard there first. We will hear later," the Chief Justice told the advocate, who mentioned the PIL seeking urgent hearing. The advocate insisted the bench to hear the matter and give some 'prima facie' finding. The bench, however, refused. "What prima facie finding? There is too much heat and weather conditions aren't conducive and air-conditions not working in theatres? Let them (SC) hear it first," the bench remarked in lighter vein. .The two PILs, one by Anindya Sundar Das and the other by Debdatta Majhi, have challenged the decision of the State to ban the screening of the film.The petitioners claimed that a film's exhibition cannot be banned by the government by merely issuing a notification. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court had, on May 12, issued notice to West Bengal and Tamil Nadu on the plea filed by the makers of The Kerala Story challenging the ban. In response, the West Bengal government said that contains hate speech and is based on manipulated facts that can lead to communal disharmony and law and order issues in the State.The Tamil Nadu government, however, denied imposing any ban and said that it was poor audience response to the movie that led to its ouster from movie theatres. .The Kerala Story is a Hindi film about a group of women from Kerala who join ISIS. The film was released on May 5.Even before its release, the film had invited criticism from several quarters. In Kerala, the ruling CPI(M) and the opposition Congress party alleged that it is a propaganda movie promoting a fake narrative and an agenda of right wing organizations..The Kerala High Court had, on May 5, refused to stay the release of the film. A bench of Justices N Nagaresh and Sophy Thomas, after watching the teaser and the trailer of the movie, determined that it did not contain anything against Islam or Muslims as a whole but was about terrorist organsiation Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).Appeal against the same is pending before the top court.Notably, a slew of petitions were filed before various courts in the country against the movie.The Madras High Court on May 4 rejected a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking a ban on the movie on the ground that the Kerala High Court was already hearing a similar challenge and that the petitioner had approached the Court at "the last hour".