Shah Rukh Khan’s production house Red Chillies Entertainment has opposed Sameer Wankhede’s defamation suit filed against Aryan Khan’s web-series, The Ba***ds of Bollywood for portraying Sameer in bad light. In the reply to Sameer’s injunction application, the production house maintained that The Ba***ds of Bollywood is a piece of satire and parody.
As per Live Law, the response states, “The allegations levelled against Defendant No 1 relate to a clip lasting not more than one minute and forty-eight seconds, where a police officer in plain clothes is merely portrayed as an overzealous officer. There is nothing remotely defamatory about the said clip.”
Red Chillies also stated that Sameer is a public official and he should be open to criticism and artistic interpretation, while further adding that, “Those who occupy public positions must not be overly thin-skinned.”
Explaining the intent behind the show, the production house said that The Ba***ds of Bollywood is a “work of satire” where all characters are portrayed with “exaggerated traits” to elicit humour.
“Satire, by its nature, relies on overstatement, caricature, and hyperbole, and is not intended to convey factual assertions about any real individual. Such exaggeration is a recognised and protected form of expression, designed to entertain, provoke thought, and critique, and cannot, by itself, constitute defamation,” said the production house as per the report.
The matter was taken up for hearing by Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav, who listed it for further proceedings on November 10, directing all parties to file their written submissions.
Previously, Sameer, who had arrested Aryan in a drug-related investigation in 2021, had filed a defamation suit before the Delhi High Court against the makers of Aryan’s show, The Ba***ds of Bollywood. In the plea, Sameer said that the series shows him in a "false, malicious and defamatory manner".
In a scene in The Ba***ds of Bollywood a cartoonish character, supposedly based on Sameer, catches a character on suspicion of him possessing drugs. He chants ‘Satyamev Jayate’ before exiting the scene when another character shows him the middle finger.
“This series disseminates a misleading and negative portrayal of anti-drug enforcement agencies, thereby eroding public confidence in law enforcement institutions," Sameer had said in his defamation suit.
