Emraan Hashmi and Yami Gautam’s upcoming film Haq has been hit with legal trouble just days before its highly-anticipated release.
The legal drama film – which is based on the iconic Shah Bano Case – is facing legal lawsuit from her family over consent and privacy breach. On November 3, Siddiqua Begum Khan, daughter of Shah Bano Begum, filed a petition in the Indore Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court.
The lawsuit alleged that the filmmakers did not obtain their consent before making the film and misrepresents her mother’s personal life. The case seeks an immediate stay on the film’s screening, promotion and exhibition which is slated to hit theatres on November 7. “This film is based on the landmark case of MA Khan vs Shah Bano Begum. For the first time in Indian history, a Muslim woman fought for maintenance and won the case It is mandatory to obtain someone’s consent before using their personal life, name, as this falls under the right to privacy,” Siddiqua’s lawyer, Tauseef Warsi, told Indian media.
Meanwhile, Jubair Ahmad Khan, the grandson of Shah Bano, said that that they only learned about the film when the teaser was released. “A lot of facts in the teaser are distorted. It is our private matter that has been given a commercial angle,” he said. The makers of the film, through their lawyer Ajay Bagadiya, stated that liberties had been taken to dramatise the events and that the movie is a fictional depiction. Haq, directed by Suparn S Verma, is based on the landmark 1985 Shah Bano case, which concerned women’s rights and maintenance laws in India.