Manoj Kumar is at it again. After raising a big fuss about being parodied in Om Shanti Om, he threatened to take Shah Rukh Khan and Farah Khan to court to get the offending scenes removed. Nothing seemed to come of it, and Shah Rukh and Farah personally went to Manoj Kumar’s house to apologize. Reports indicated that he accepted the apology, and no deletions were necessary. But now, days before the television premiere of Om Shanti Om, Mr. Kumar is in the news again. He has gone to the courts to have the scene referring to him cut out of film and it has been reported that the Mumbai sessions court has sided with him. The makers of Om Shanti Om have been ordered to delete the controversial scenes.
This ruling does not seem fair; the scene in Om Shanti Om paroding Manoj Kumar is certainly not the first of its kind. In fact, a few other major stars were parodied in the same movie. But we don’t see Dev Anand or Mithunda raising an issue about it. Shah Rukh, Aamir, Salman, Sanjay Dutt, numerous others have been made fun of in comedies, but no problem has arisen. Why now, and why would a judge rule like this? If this is the case, thousands of scenes should be omitted from past movies.
The ruling is very disappointing. We hope this does not pave the way for future rulings similar to this one.
