Kolkata, Sep 8, 2025
A single-judge Bench of the Calcutta High Court on Monday dismissed a petition filed against the Vivek Agnihotri–directed movie ‘The Bengal Files’ because the petitioner could not back the claims behind his petition with substantiated information and supporting documents.
The petition was filed by Santanu Mukherjee, grandson of freedom fighter Gopal Mukherjee a.k.a. Gopal Patha, with the latter being portrayed in the movie.
Santanu Mukherjee filed the petition on two grounds, the first of which was that his grandfather was wrongly portrayed in the movie.
The second reason was that it was not clear what the sources of information were about his grandfather, based on which the latter was portrayed in the movie. He also filed an Right To Information (RTI) application on these points, but failed to get any reply to it.
The third ground was how Agnihotri could be a member of the CBFC.
The matter came up for hearing at the single-judge Bench of Amrita Sinha on Monday. During the course of the hearing, Justice Sinha clearly said that such petitions did not come under the jurisdiction of her court and the petitioner should approach the appropriate forum in the matter.
She also observed that since the petitioner could not present the details of the information based on the RTI application he made and present the same in the court, his petition stood cancelled.
Last month, Santanu Mukherjee also registered an FIR against the movie at a police station in Kolkata for allegedly wrongfully describing his grandfather as a butcher in the movie.
“Besides being a part of the freedom-fighters’ group, Anushilon Samity, my grandfather owned two goat-meat shops. But that does not make him a butcher himself. He was a wrestler. He took to arms to protect people from the communal violence unleashed by the Muslim League in Kolkata in 1946,” Santanu Mukherjee said then.
‘The Bengal Files’, is perceived to be the third part of the ‘Files’ trilogy, the first being ‘The Tashkent Files’ in 2019 and the second being the much-controversial ‘The Kashmir Files’ in 2022.
Previously, the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government had been accused of issuing gag orders against other feature films on allegedly “flimsy” grounds.(Agency)
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