Filmmaker Karan Johar, who is currently abroad for a film shoot, has sought time from the Mumbai police to record his statement in connection with a case registered against him and 13 others for allegedly putting up a “vulgar and obscene” public performance at the AIB roast show held at NSCI’s indoor stadium here in January last year.
A senior police officer said here on Saturday that summons had been issued to Karan Johar three weeks ago to appear before the Tardeo police and record his statement for allegedly making “vulgar” and “obscene” statements at the controversial AIB show held at NSCI’s Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel indoor stadium on January 20, 2015.
The police officer said that Johar had, through his lawyer, informed the Tardeo police station that he was currently away from the country for a film shoot and would record his state once he returned from abroad.
Following a directive given by a Mumbai metropolitan court on February 20, the Tardeo police had registered an FIR against producer-director Karan Johar, actors Ranvir Singh and Arjun Kapoor and 11 others for allegedly putting up a pre-scripted vulgar and obscene public performance at the AIB roast show.
Acting on a complaint filed by social activist Santosh Daundkar, Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate CS Baviskar ordered the Tardeo police to register against the officials of the NSCI and several film personalities, including Johar, Ranvir, Arjun, Deepika Padukone and Alia Bhatt for allegedly being part of a pornographic, vulgar and obscene programme.
Magistrate Baviskar had passed the order while hearing a complaint filed by social activist Daundkar who had moved the court after the police failed to take cognizance of a complaint registered at the Tardeo police station. He had invoked section 177 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, under which the court has the jurisdiction over the place of offence.
Apart from Johar, Ranvir, Arjun, Deepika Padukone and Alia Bhatt, the others against whom the FIR was registered by the Tardeo police would included: Jayantilal Shah, president of NSCI, Ravinder Aggarwal, secretary general of NSCI, organisers of AIB Roast programme, film critic Rajeev Masand, and popular stand up comedians like Rohan Joshi, Tanmay Bhatt, Gursimran Khamba, Ashish Shakya, and Aditi Mittal.
While 4,000-odd people had witnessed live performance at the show, the organisers later uploaded the edited version of the show on the YouTube, which attracted more than three million hits after the show went viral on the internet.
Representing Daundkar in the court, senior lawyer Abha Singh had told the court that the Bollywood personalities gave a “pre-scripted” performance which involved vulgar, pornographic and obscene jokes. “Such words and jokes were spoken in front of a large number of women audience in an open defiance to the laws which govern our country,” she said.
The court ordered the police to register an FIR under sections under which the complaint would be registered include section 120-b (criminal conspiracy), sections 294, 509 (speaking vulgar, obscene and pornographic words publicly before a women audience) of the Indian Penal Code, Section 67 and 66 A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (circulation of obscene, pornographic content on the internet).