Plea against 'Gunjan Saxena - The Kargil Girl' movie; Delhi HC asks to decide on representation
Aug 28, 2020
New Delhi [India], Aug 28 : The Delhi High Court on Friday asked the authorities concerned to decide the representation of public interest litigation (PIL) against the movie "Gunjan Saxena - The Kargil Girl" as per the law.
With this direction, a division bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan disposed of the PIL seeking direction to modify or delete dialogues and scenes from the movies which portray a negative image of the Indian Air Force (IAF).
The plea also sought to stay the streaming of the movie on the over-the-top (OTT) platform till such time the inaccurate, false and misleading portrayal of the IAF through the dialogues and scenes in the said movie are not modified or deleted.
The petition, filed by NGO Justice For Rights Foundation president Satyam Singh Rajput through advocate Amit Sharma, stated that some scenes and dialogues in the movie are factually incorrect, misleading and portray an inappropriate work culture to glorify the screen character of the former Flight Lieutenant Gunjan Saxena.
It said that several male officers have been projected as misogynists to suit the film's false narrative and added that the false and negative portrayal of the IAF is an abuse of freedom of expression which ought to be censured.
The plea said that "undue negative portrayal" in the movie and the complete distortion of reality in the unimaginably obnoxious scenes of interruptions of flight briefings by the Flight Commander and the crude arm-wrestling games in the crew room to prove the so-called 'weakness' of women officers.
These are instances of malicious fabrication by the filmmakers, in the name of cinematic license and need to be treated with the contempt that they deserve, it said.
The plea also said that no quarter or concession was given in terms of professionalism to women officers, and indeed, none was asked for, simply because military operations are a matter of life and death and no concessions can be given to anyone, without endangering the lives of an entire group of people.
"The training imparted at the Air Force and other Military Academies also precluded this, being equally stringent for all cadets (trainees), male and female. Socially, however, women officers were received with the same kind of courtesy and chivalry when they arrived, as was usually reserved for the families hitherto, even though they were 'one of the boys,' so to say. All this has been grossly misrepresented in the film which shows the males of the entire unit feeling threatened and treating the Lady Officer with resentment and suspicion," the plea said.
