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Eklavya

'Eklavya' row: Director gives up, FFI to frame new norms
19th Oct 2007 09.00 IST
By Agencies

Legal battle over the selection of Eklavya as India's Oscar entry more or less ended Thursday as director Bhavana Talwar, who had challenged the selection in Bombay High Court, gave up her demand that Film Federation of India reconsider its decision.

On the other hand, FFI told the court that it has decided to frame new guidelines for selection of jury, so that a similar controversy does not arise in future.

FFI lawyer V R Manohar agreed to hand over the draft of new guidelines to the court by November 22, following which the division bench of Chief Justice Swatanter Kumar and Justice Dhananjay Chandrachud is expected to dispose of the case.

Talwar's lawyer Ravi Kadam told the court that since the deadline set by Academy of Motion Picture for finalising the entry was over and if ‘Eklavya’ was to be withdrawn at this stage, India would not have any entry for Oscar this year, his client would not like to "play spoilsport".

Kadam further said his client felt "vindicated" that even the judges took the view that FFI's selection process needed to be more transparent.

The bench, however, disagreed with Kadam's plea that High Court itself frame the guidelines.

Pointing out that after all FFI was a private body and not an arm of the government, the bench said it would not be appropriate. "We are leaving it to the self-regulatory body of FFI to frame guidelines," court observed.

The judges also said they would not "disturb the selection of 'Eklavya' this year in the national interest".

‘Dharm’, directed by Talwar, lost out to ‘Eklavya’ by one vote.

Talwar's case was that the jury that voted her film out was "biased" because one of them, Ranjit Bahadur, had edited a promotional film on "Eklavya", as well as that of Lage Raho Munnabhai , which too was produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra .

However, FFI's lawyer V R Manohar contended that the federation was a private trade body, and it did not act in judicial or administrative capacity while selecting India's entry for Oscar, so courts could not interfere in the selection process.

But Manohar conceded that nevertheless, FFI was expected to be fair-minded in its procedures.

He said FFI has passed a resolution that new guidelines should be framed in the wake of ‘Eklavya’ controversy.

Stating that FFI was never aware of Bahadur's association with Chopra camp, Manohar said in future questionnaires would be given to would-be jury members, to find out if they have anything to do with films in the race.

The judges however reiterated that though FFI was a private body, the film selected by it was going to represent the country on an international forum.

Indicating that they were not inclined to interfere with this year's selection, chief justice said, "We are keen on setting the selection process right."

Next date of hearing has been fixed on November 22.

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