Anand ST Das By

Express News Service

PATNA: A day before Delhi High Court hears a plea seeking a stay on the trailer of the upcoming Bollywood movie ‘The Accidental Prime Minister’, a local court in Bihar on Tuesday ordered lodging of an FIR against actors Anupam Kher, Akshaye Khanna and 15 others associated with the movie.

Hearing a complaint alleging that the movie presents former prime minister Manmohan Singh and several other public figures in a “bad light,” the sub-divisional judicial magistrate’s court in Muzaffarpur directed the Kanti police station to lodge an FIR.

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Muzaffarpur-based lawyer Sudhir Kumar Ojha had moved the chief judicial magistrate’s (CJM) court with a complaint against the movie on January 2. The complaint was lodged under Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sections 295, 153, 153A, 293, 504 and 120B, which deal with offences including promoting enmity between different groups, dissemination of obscene objects, insult with intent to provoke breach of peace and criminal conspiracy.

Actor Anupam Kher plays the role of Manmohan Singh while Akshaye Khanna is seen in the role of Singh’s media advisor Sanjaya Baru in the movie, which is based on a book by the same name authored by Baru and published in 2014. The movie is set for worldwide release on January 11.

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Apart from Kher and Khanna, others named in the complaint include actors playing the roles of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Congress president Rahul Gandhi, former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee, deputy PM Lal Krishna Advani and RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav. the complaint also names the movie’s producer, director and other key people associated with the project.

A petition filed in Delhi High Court seeking a ban on the movie’s trailer is due for a hearing on Wednesday. The petitioner, Pooja Mahajan, claims that from the trailer it appears that the movie has been made “just to create a different impression in the minds of the people and to brainwash them”.