The Delhi High Court refused to hear film-maker Mahesh Bhatt’s petition against a health ministry notification making it mandatory to show anti-tobacco messages in the beginning and middle of a film, saying that the apex court has already been seized with a similar plea.<\/p>\n
According to the bench of Chief Justice D Murugesan and Justice V K Jain,\u00a0“When the matter is pending before the Supreme Court, how can we also keep it pending? We are not inclined to entertain this petition.”<\/p>\n
Bhatt had moved the court seeking quashing of the September 21, 2012 notification of Ministry of \u00a0Health which said that an anti-tobacco health spots of minimum 30 seconds shall be displayed at the beginning and middle of the films displaying tobacco products or their use.<\/p>\n
He, in the plea, said the notification, which came into force from October 2, is “irrational, unconstitutional and illegal and if permitted to be implemented shall result in serious miscarriage of justice.”<\/p>\n
The bench told that it cannot entertain the plea as a similar matter is pending with the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
“An audio-visual disclaimer of minimum 20 seconds on the ill-effects of tobacco use shall be displayed at the beginning and middle of the films displaying tobacco products or their use,” the notification reads.<\/p>\n
The notification also involves the requirement of strong editorial justification for any film displaying tobacco.<\/p>\n
“….the health spots and disclaimers, the films showing use of the tobacco products shall also be required to display an anti-tobacco health warning in the form of a static message during the period of display of the tobacco products or their use in the films,” According to the notification.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Delhi High Court refused to hear film-maker Mahesh Bhatt’s petition against a health ministry notification making it mandatory to show anti-tobacco messages in the beginning and middle of a film, saying that the apex court has already been seized with a similar plea. According to the bench of Chief Justice D Murugesan and Justice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[89],"tags":[20481,20483,20482,255,20479,20480,20484,20485,3174,19885,20487,20486],"class_list":["post-26458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-entertainment-news","tag-anti-tobacco-messages","tag-audio-visual-disclaimer","tag-chief-justice-d-murugesan-and-justice-v-k-jain","tag-delhi-high-court","tag-film-maker-mahesh-bhatts-petition","tag-health-ministry","tag-health-spots-and-disclaimers","tag-irrational","tag-mahesh-bhatt","tag-ministry-of-health","tag-plea-against-mahesh-bhutt","tag-unconstitutional-and-illegal"],"yoast_head":"\n