High Court adjourns plea to postpone the release of John Abraham starrer Batla House

9 Aug 2019

The Delhi High Court on Thursday adjourned till August 13 a plea seeking to postpone the release date of the Hindi film Batla House.The court was hearing a petition filed byAriz Khan and Shehzad Ahmad who are the accused in the Batla House encounter. The case is being reviewed by a single judge bench of Justice Vibhu Bakhri who has asked the petitioner to file an additional affidavit highlighting the relation between the scenes in the movie and those accused in the case. Their pleas stated that the poster and the promotional videos of the movie claimed that the sequence of events in the movie were inspired by true events, creating an impression that the film depicted the true account of what happened at Batla House. Although the courts discharge their duties in a free and fair manner and are not likely to be affected by the events portrayed in a movie the release of such a movie would prejudice the outcome of the trial, the plea said. The plea also states that the events portrayed in the film will prejudice the concerned trial especially as there has been an effort to connect the two incidents- Batla House and the Delhi serial bomb blasts. Advocate Nitya Ramakrishnan is representing the petitioners, while advocate Neeraj Kishan Kaul is appearing for the film producers. Directed by Nikkhil Advani and starring John Abraham Batla House is inspired by the encounter operation that took place in a building of the same name in Delhi on September 19, 2008. John Abraham essays Deputy Commissioner of Police Sanjeev Kumar Yadav, who spearheaded the police operation. Batla House , which also features actors like Mrunal Thakur and Ravi Kishan , is scheduled to release on August 15 along with Mission Mangal.