NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed release of Hindi film “Jhund,” having Amitabh Bachchan in a key role, on the OTT (Over the top) platform of Zee5 on Friday, staying the Telangana High Court’s status quo order.
A Bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and AS Bopanna stayed the interim order of status quo passed by the Telangana High Court on April 29.
“Jhund” is a biographical sports film based on the life of Vijay Barse, a retired professor and a sports enthusiast who founded NGO Slum Soccer in Nagpur in 2001 that became very popular among the poor children to play football transcending race, religion, language and gender.
The Bench held: ““Prima facie appears that the impugned order is clearly against the balance of convenience. The High Court has overlooked the principles with regard to the grant of interim relief. In any case, claim if any of the respondents is a money claim. The impugned order shall remain stayed.”
The top court took up the case on senior advocate C A Sundaram mentioning on Wednesday for an urgent listing of the petition filed by film’s producer Super Cassettes Industries Pvt Ltd (T Series), pointing out that the film was already released in theatres on March 4 and it is scheduled to be released on the OTT platform when the High Court’s status quo order came.
The senior advocate said the challenge to the movie had already been dismissed earlier. He was referring to a trial court rejecting Kumar’s plea for an injunction against the theatre release of the film. Kumar then approached the High Court challenging the trial court’s order and on April 29, the interim order was passed.
