Supreme Court today stayed all criminal proceedings against actor, director, producer of ‘Oru Adaar Love’, which some Muslim groups claim has offended religious sentiments when lyrics of song are translated.
A bench headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra had agreed to hear the matter after Advocate Haris Beeran alongwith Adv Pallavi Pratap (AOR), appearing for the petitioners Varrier and Omar Lulu, the film director, sought urgent hearing. The petition filed contended that the “song is originally from an old folk song from Kerala which was written in 1978 by Mr. PMA Jabbar and was first sung by Mr. Thalassery Rafeeq, in the praise of the Prophet and his wife Beevi Khadija” and that “the claims that it hurts the religious sentiments of the Muslim Community are without any basis”.
Yesterday, the SC agreed to an urgent hearing of a petition by Priya who’s seeking the quashing of FIRs lodged against her and film makers for a song that some groups feel offends the religious sentiments of Muslims.
Two more FIRs – one by the secretary of Raza Academy with Mumbai Police and another by Janjagran Samithi at Jinsi police station in Maharashtra’s Aurangabad – forced Priya Prakash Varrier, director Omar Abdul Wahab and producer Joseph Valakuzhy Eapen to move the SC through advocate Beeran. They invoked artists’ fundamental right to speech and expression and sought quashing of the FIRs.
