Sanyukta Iyer (MUMBAI MIRROR; November 18, 2017)

The controversy over the dropping of two films — Sanal Kumar Sashidharan’s Malayalam film S Durga and Ravi Jadhav’s Marathi film Nude — from the list of 26 films to be screened in the Indian Panorama section of the 48th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) led to Sanal moving the Single Bench of the Kerala High Court on November 14. Three jury members — Chairperson Sujoy Ghosh, Apurva Asrani and Gyan Correa have subsequently resigned, while Sanal filed a writ petition with the Division Bench after his case did not come up for hearing on November 16.

After referring to the statements filed by the Central Government Counsel and the petitioner, Mirror has learnt that in the pre-noon session on Friday, the Division Bench heard the case and made two key observations. First, the Information & Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry had behaved in a high-handed and arbitrary manner. Second, that Sanal should have been given an opportunity to screen the censored version of S Durga for the jury and the ministry.

Admitting that dropping S Durga from the film list on the grounds that the jury had seen the pre-censored version was unfair, the Division Bench has suggested that the Single Bench list the petition and give them a hearing by November 20 — the opening day of IFFI.

According to a witness, “If the Single Bench of the Kerala High Court deems that the film can be screened, S Durga might get screened over the course of the eight-day festival.”