S Durga movie: After marathon meeting, IFFI jury puts ball in I&B's court

Guarded by muscled bouncers and an armed police picket, IFFI's Indian Panorama panel jury on Monday claimed to have decided the fate of Sanal Kumar Sasidharan's film "S Durga", but the panel's acting head Rahul Rawail said that the jury's decision would be formally conveyed by the Union Information and Broadcasting Ministry to the Kerala High Court.

Reacting to the development, Sasidharan said that the prolonged delay amounted to the mockery of the judicial orders and that the aim of the IFFI organisers was to ensure that the film was not screened at the festival, which ends on Tuesday.

Emerging for a brief while out of the more than five-hour long meeting of the jury at the Kala Academy here, Rawail spoke briefly to the media, claiming he could not elaborate on the issue, as the matter was "sub judice".

"The matter has been given to the Information and Broadcasting ministry, which will hand over to the Court and the order will come from the Court," he told reporters, adding that the jury had arrived at a decision during the meeting.

A jury member speaking on condition of anonymity, however, said, that a majority of the jury had voted in favour of the film to be screened at the festival.

Asked about the new members, directors Satish Kaushik, Vivek Agnihotri and Editor-in-Chief of Zee News Sudhir Chaudhary, appointed to the jury, Rawail said: "The matter is sub judice."
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