Quash censor certificate issued to Amaran, engineering student urges Madras HC

An engineering student from Alwarthirunagar in Chennai has filed a writ petition in the Madras High Court to quash the censor board certificate issued to actor Sivakarthikeyan-starrer Amaran as his personal mobile phone number had been displayed in one of the scenes in the movie.

An engineering student from Alwarthirunagar in Chennai has filed a writ petition in the Madras High Court to quash the censor board certificate issued to actor Sivakarthikeyan-starrer Amaran as his personal mobile phone number had been displayed in one of the scenes in the movie.

The petitioner, V.V. Vaageesan, has also sought an interim injunction restraining the production firm Raajkamal Films International, helmed by actor Kamal Haasan and director Rajkumar Periyasamy, from releasing the movie on Over-the-Top (OTT) platforms until the disposal of his writ petition.

The other interim reliefs sought for by the petitioner were to direct the production firm and the director to jointly pay him a compensation of ₹1.1 crore and a direction to Bharti Airtel Limited to produce before the court the incoming call records of his mobile phone number from October 31, 2024.

Amaran, a biopic of late army officer Major Mukund Varadarajan, contains scenes portraying how he and his wife Indhu Rebecca Varghese (played by actor Sai Pallavi) fell in love. In one such scene, Ms. Pallavi’s character shares a 10-digit phone number with the protagonist.

That number happened to be that of the writ petitioner, and he complained that he had been bombarded with phone calls ever since the movie hit the theatres on October 31. The callers presumed that the number was that of either Ms. Pallavi or Ms. Varghese and insisted on speaking to them, the petitioner said.

The writ petition is expected to be listed for hearing before Justice S. Sounthar on Friday (December 6, 2024). Pursuant to a legal notice issued by the petitioner, the production firm had apologised to the student for the inadvertent mistake and also masked his phone number before releasing the movie on Netflix on December 5, 2024.