Banning on-screen smoking affects depiction of reality: Bhatt

- Planet Bollywood Special Correspondant           Let us know what you think about this story

The director's submission came before Justice S K Kaul, who is hearing the matter as an umpire judge after a split verdict by a division bench on filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt's petition challenging the government notification banning smoking scenes in films and television programmes.

Earlier, the Centre had justified a blanket ban on smoking scenes in films and television programmes, and contended that on-screen depiction of smoking is against public interest as people try to imitate their stars' actions.

"A large number of people get affected by observing what their stars do on screen in films or advertisements. People start imitating them. People would be encouraged for smoking if they see film stars or sports person doing the same in a film or advertisement," Additional Solicitor General P P Malhotra and Advocate Mukul Gupta said.

"There have been many instances where people particularly youth and children have tried to imitate what they see on the screen. In some cases people have jumped from high buildings trying to imitate what they saw in a film. So will be the case if on-screen smoking is allowed," the government said.

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