Tolerance for all religions, patience, harmony and welfare of humankind are the basic tenets of Hinduism, the Gujarat High Court said recently while dismissing a petition seeking a ban on the showing of Bollywood film Kedarnath in the state.
The court said the petition was based on “wrong notions about Hinduism” and asked the petitioners how “a love story between a Hindu and a Muslim could hurt religious sentiments”.
According to a Hindustan Times report, the petition, filed by Prakash Sundersinh Rajput, the state chief of the International Hindu Sena, had contended that the exhibition of the film – that is based on the 2013 Uttarakhand floods – hurt the religious sentiments of Hindus.
The petition had also alleged that the show of intimacy between a Muslim boy and a Hindu girl “is not only rude and offensive but also unfair for public exhibition”.
The order was passed by a bench comprising Acting Chief Justice AS Dave and Justice Biren Vaishnav.
“... just because a Muslim boy is shown to be in love with a Hindu girl at a holy place, we fail to understand how religious sentiments of Hindu community will be affected,” the bench observed, as per the report.
As per Live Law, the court even went on to assert that any prohibitory steps from its side would result in a breach of fundamental rights.
“On the contrary, in our opinion, any preventive step or prohibitory action on the part of the Court by issuing notice and granting ban on exhibition of movie, which is a work of fiction and creation of art, will certainly result in breach of fundamental rights, more particularly, right to freedom of speech and expression, of the Producer, Director and Exhibitors, including script-writers, as they are carrying out lawful activity by producing, directing and exhibiting films,” the bench said.
Earlier, The Uttarakhand High Court had also refused to stay the release of the film.
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