Nobody can tinker with national anthem, says apex court

New Delhi, May 25 (PTI) Refusing to entertain
Bollywood director Ram Gopal Verma's petition against a Censor
Board's ruling on a controversial song in his forthcoming film
"Rann", the Supreme Court of India Monday said nobody has got
the right to tinker with the national anthem.

"We have read it. It gives a total negative sense. It
seems every line of national anthem has been proved wrong.
Nobody has got a right to tinker with the national anthem," a
vacation bench of Justices V S Sirpurkar and R M Lodha said.

The bench made the observation while declining to
quash the order passed by the Central Board of Film
Certification (CBFC) on May 8 directing Verma to delete
certain "objectionable" references made to the national anthem
in "Rann."

Senior counsel Arun Jaitley's argument on behalf of
the director that even parties like Congress-I, NCP and
Trinamool Congress use the national tricolour with their
respective party symbols failed to convince the bench which
asked the petitioner to approach the appellate tribunal of the
CBFC on the certification issue.

The apex court then directed the appellate tribunal to
dispose off Verma's petition within a month as and when it is
filed.

The CBFC has observed that "the promo (of the film)
contains song 'Jana Gana Mana Rann', the national anthem
which has been distorted and tampered with and mixed with
other words and lyrics in a form other than the national
anthem.

"The film violates guidelines 2(xix) of the section 5B
2 of the Cinematograph Act, 1952 and further violates the
Rules/Orders relating to the National Anthem of India as given
in the Prevention of Insult to National Honour act, 1971," it
has said.

Verma had filed the appeal challenging the censor
board's ruling.

In his petition, the film director submitted that a
large number of political parties, including Indian National
Congress and its offshoots including Trinamool Congress and
Nationalist Congress Party, have party flags which are similar
to national flag with a variation in the symbol at the center.

"If a fallacious reading of the said section is
undertaken, then the acts of such political parties will
tantamount to mutilating, defacing, defiling, and disfiguring
the national flag and therefore committing an offence under
The Prevention of Insult to National Honour Act, 1971," the
petition stated. PTI RB