A division bench at the Calcutta High Court pressed the West Bengal government on Tuesday for clear answers about any secret orders blocking the screening of director Vivek Agnihotri’s new film, ‘The Bengal Files’, in Kolkata’s cinemas and multiplexes.
Justices Sujay Paul and Smita Das De gave the state until September 26 to respond. The court plans to hear the case again on that date.
This move came from a public interest litigation filed earlier this month. The PIL urges the court to step in and ensure ‘The Bengal Files’ gets a fair shot at theaters across West Bengal without hassle.
Right now, an unofficial ban seems to be in play. Cinema owners in the state have refused to book slots for the movie, sources say, due to pressure from a specific political group.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Justice Paul directly asked the government’s lawyer if it’s true that not a single Kolkata theater is showing ‘The Bengal Files’.
Earlier this month, a single judge, Justice Amrita Sinha, threw out a different petition trying to stop the film’s release. The filer, Santanu Mukherjee—grandson of freedom fighter Gopal Patha, who appears in the movie—couldn’t provide solid proof for his claims. Justice Sinha ruled that the issue didn’t belong in her court and told him to take it elsewhere.
‘The Bengal Files’ wraps up Agnihotri’s ‘Files’ trilogy. It follows ‘The Tashkent Files’ from 2019 and the highly debated ‘The Kashmir Files’ in 2022, both of which stirred big conversations on historical events.
The Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government has faced similar flak before. Critics accused it of slapping gag orders on films like ‘The Kerala Story’ over what they called weak reasons.
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