In a relief to Vivek Agnihotri’s historical-drama, The Bengal Files, a petition filed against the film was dismissed by a single-judge Bench of the Calcutta High Court on Monday as the petitioner failed to back their claims with substantiated information and supporting documents.
The petition was filed by Santanu Mukherjee, grandson of freedom fighter Gopal Mukherjee a.k.a. Gopal Patha, who has been portrayed briefly in the film. Santanu filed the petition accusing the makers of misrepresenting the legacy of his grandfather.
Shantanu felt that the film’s portrayal of his grandfather stemmed from unclear sources of information. He also filed a Right To Information (RTI) application on these points, but failed to get a response.
The matter came up for hearing at the single-judge Bench of Amrita Sinha. During the course of the hearing, Justice Sinha clearly said that such petitions did not come under the jurisdiction of the court and the petitioner should approach the appropriate forum in the matter.
She also observed that since the petitioner could not present the details of the information based on the RTI application he made, his petition stood cancelled.
Last month, Santanu also registered an FIR against the movie at a police station in Kolkata for allegedly wrongfully describing his grandfather as a butcher in it.
“Besides being a part of the freedom-fighters’ group, Anushilon Samity, my grandfather owned two goat-meat shops. But that does not make him a butcher himself. He was a wrestler. He took to arms to protect people from the communal violence unleashed by the Muslim League in Kolkata in 1946,” Santanu had said in the complaint.
The Bengal Files was released in theatres on September 5. It is the third part of the ‘Files’ trilogy, the first being The Tashkent Files (2019) and the second being the much-controversial The Kashmir Files (2022).
Previously, the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government had been accused of issuing gag orders against other feature films on allegedly “flimsy” grounds.
