The Supreme Court on Friday blanketed filmmaker Leena Manimekalai from arrest and different coercive techniques in reference to more than one crook instances lodged in opposition to her over a poster of her documentary movie offering a girl dressed as Goddess Kaali and smoking.
The reprieve from a bench headed through Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud got here at the same time as Manimekalai recorded her announcement withinside the courtroom docket that she did now no longer intend to harm non secular sentiments of each person and that the depiction of the Goddess became to expose her in an “inclusive sense”.
The bench, which additionally blanketed justice PS Narasimha, took the filmmaker’s announcement on file and directed that she can be able to now no longer be subjected to any coercive process, together with arrest withinside the wake of the primary statistics reports (FIRs) registered in opposition to her over the poster.
The courtroom docket issued notices to the states of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh for clubbing of the FIRs pending there at one area.
“List the petition on February 20, 2023. In the period in-between no coercive steps will be taken in opposition to petitioner both on foundation of the FIRs as cited above or pursuant to another FIR which might also additionally were or might be lodged with regards to the identical offence,” said the courtroom docket order.
The bench in addition cited that there may be a glance out circular (LoC) issued through the Madhya Pradesh police in opposition to Manimekalai because she is a Canada-primarily based totally filmmaker, and stated that no movement might be taken through the airport government concerning the LoC too.
The order added: “Multiple FIRs in numerous states might be a rely of great prejudice. We trouble be aware to have all FIRs consolidated at one area after which the petitioner might be at liberty to report a Section 482 CrPc plea.”
Section 482 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPc) permits someone pass the excessive courtroom docket involved for quashing of the FIRs. Advocate Kamini Jaiswal regarded for the filmmaker.
The Madurai-born filmmaker shared the poster of ‘Kaali’ at the microblogging website, Twitter, in July 2022, and stated the documentary became a part of the ‘Rhythms of Canada’ phase on the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto.
It brought on giant fury on social media and precipitated the Indian High Commission in Toronto to invite the government in Canada for elimination of the posters.
While Twitter pulled down the post, a flurry of FIRs had been filed in opposition to her invoking Sections 153A (selling enmity among specific agencies at the grounds of faith and doing acts prejudicial to preservation of harmony) and 295A (planned and malicious acts meant to outrage non secular emotions of any elegance through insulting its faith or non secular beliefs) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
‘Kaali’ is a film approximately Manimekalai in whose frame goddess Kaali inhabits and roams across the metropolis streets. In a scene, the goddess in her frame stocks a cigarette with a homeless man.
“In rural Tamil Nadu, the kingdom I come from, Kaali is thought to be a pagan goddess. She eats meat cooked in goat’s blood, liquids arrack, smokes beedi [cigarettes] and dances wild … this is the Kaali I had embodied for the movie,” Manimekalai, who identifies herself as bisexual and atheist, stated in an interview with the Guardian ultimate year.