Indore: The Madhya Pradesh High Court has dismissed a petition filed by Shah Bano Begum’s daughter seeking to halt the release of the Hindi film Haq, ruling that the right to privacy and reputation is not inheritable and ceases with a person’s death.

Justice Pranay Verma of the Indore bench, in a judgment made available on Thursday, said filmmakers were under no obligation to obtain consent from Shah Bano’s family. The court had reserved the order on November 4, paving the way for the film’s release on Friday.

“It has been categorically laid down that the right of privacy or reputation of a person comes to an end after his or her lifetime,” the court observed. Justice Verma added that since Shah Bano is no longer alive, her right to privacy and reputation ended with her death.

The petitioner, Siddiqua Begum Khan, daughter of Shah Bano, had argued that the film misrepresented personal facets of her late mother’s life and that the commercialisation of her mother’s private life violated inheritable moral and personality rights. The court, however, found no violation of the petitioner’s own rights and rejected her claim.

The film Haq, starring Yami Gautam Dhar and Emraan Hashmi, is inspired by the landmark 1985 Supreme Court judgment that upheld the right of divorced Muslim women to maintenance, following Shah Bano Begum’s legal battle against her husband, lawyer Mohammad Ahmed Khan. Bano, a resident of Indore, died in 1992.

Producers defended the film, asserting that it is a fictionalised work protected by the freedom of artistic expression under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution. They noted that the film includes a disclaimer identifying it as a dramatised adaptation of Jigna Vora’s book Bano: Bharat ki Beti, inspired by the 1985 verdict but not a biopic.

The court accepted this argument, observing that creative dramatisation allows “some amount of leeway” and does not amount to false portrayal. It also noted that the petition was delayed since reports about the film’s production had surfaced in early 2024.

The respondents in the case included the Union government, the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), director Suparn S Varma, and associated production companies. The CBFC had cleared the film with a UA 13+ certificate on October 28.

With inputs from PTI