Madhya Pradesh HC dismisses Shah Bano Begum’s daughter’s plea against release of Emraan Hashmi, Yami Gautam film Haq

Shah Bano Begum’s daughter filed a suit opposing the distribution of the Hindi movie Haq, but the Madhya Pradesh High Court rejected it. Haq, which stars Yami Gautam Dhar and Emraan Hashmi in the prominent characters, is based on the life and legal battle of Shah Bano Begum, whose historic case in 1985 resulted in the Supreme Court granting support rights to divorced Muslim women.

Siddiqua Begum Khan, the daughter of Shah Bano Begum, had requested a suspension of the movie’s distribution, arguing that it misrepresented intimate details of her late mother’s life. She asserted that without obtaining permission from her legal heirs, the movie abuses her mother’s personality and privacy for commercial gain.

Justice Pranay Verma of the Indore bench dismissed these claims and said in the order, “Privacy or reputation earned by a person during his or her lifetime extinguishes with his or her death. It cannot be inherited like a movable or immovable property.”

The Court went on to add, “Since the disclaimer itself states that the same is dramatization and is fictional and an adaptation of a book and is inspired by a judgment of the Apex Court, it cannot be said that the contents of the film are fabricated. Since the film is an inspiration and a fiction, some amount of leeway is certainly permissible and merely because the same is done, it cannot be said that there has been any sensationalization or false portrayal.”

Suparn S. Verma’s film Haq is based on the historic Shah Bano case from 1985, which dealt with Indian maintenance laws and women’s rights. Shah Bano, who was sixty-two at the time, petitioned the Indore court in 1978 for maintenance from her divorced husband, Mohammed Ahmed Khan, a wealthy and well-known attorney.

After getting married in 1932, the couple had five kids. Shah Bano was granted support under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure by the Supreme Court in 1985. But the Rajiv Gandhi administration enacted laws the next year that essentially overturned the decision. On Friday, November 7, the movie is scheduled to open in theaters.