The Delhi high court on Tuesday reserved its order on a plea by IRS officer Sameer Wankhede seeking an interim injunction on the series
The Ba***ds of Bollywood, produced by Shah Rukh Khan-owned Red Chillies Entertainment Pvt Ltd.
Wankhede has sought that the series, which he has alleged to be defamatory, be taken down from several websites.
Justice Purushaindra Kaurav, after hearing all the parties in the matter, framed two questions to be decided at this stage and reserved the order on the interim plea.
The two questions framed by the court are whether the suit is maintainable in Delhi and whether the impugned depiction, when viewed as a whole in the context, prima facie crosses the threshold and turns from protected artistic expression into actionable harm to the plaintiff's reputation.
Wankhede's counsel submitted that the suit is maintainable in Delhi as his relatives who have viewed the show reside in New Delhi, departmental proceedings against him are pending here and the media houses which published the articles against him are also based in the city.
Red Chillies Entertainment and OTT Platform Netflix, however, opposed the plea saying it lacked territorial jurisdiction and the suit should have been filed in Mumbai instead of Delhi.
Netflix contended that the show exposes Bollywood culture, satire and dark comedy and cannot be injuncted in a defamation suit.
It said the officer should not be oversensitive about a one-and-a-half-minute satire scene when he himself admits it is satire. -- PTI
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